


Winter's Knight

by Waffilicious



Series: The Hazards of Love [1]
Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: Alternate Universe - Fairy Tale, Alternate Universe - Fantasy, Alternate Universe - Magic, Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Ballad 39: Tam Lin, Fantasy, Gen, M/M, Non-Serum Steve Rogers/Winter Soldier Bucky Barnes | Shrinkyclinks, Part one of three
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-08-26
Updated: 2016-09-02
Packaged: 2018-08-11 01:56:18
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 9
Words: 25,643
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7871119
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Waffilicious/pseuds/Waffilicious
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Steve is a graphic designer living in Brooklyn and still dealing with the emotional scars of the double tragedy of losing his mother and his best friend five years ago. Finally having reached a kind of equilibrium, Steve's life is turned upside-down when, on a visit to his favorite park, he finds his best friend, Bucky, dressed in what looks like very intense Ren Faire armor and claiming to be the Winter Knight, of the Unseelie Court, and that Steve is trespassing on Faerie lands. Pulled into the world of Faerie, Steve is determined to find out exactly what's happened to Bucky and bring him back home to the human world.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Many, many thanks to all my friends who read through this and encouraged me, [Sleepofreason](http://archiveofourown.org/users/Sleepofreason) for the beta, and [Mai](http://maichan808.tumblr.com/) for the stunning art (which is embedded in the first chapter)!
> 
> This isn't a direct Tam Lin AU, but it's directly inspired by it.

_“What makes you pull the rose, the rose?_  
_What makes you break the tree?_  
_What makes you come to Carterhaugh_  
_Without the leave of me?”_  
  
_“But Carterhaugh is not your own,_  
_Roses there are many,_  
_I'll come and go all as I please_  
_And not ask leave of any.”_

-Tam Lin

 

One week before the anniversary of his mother’s death, Steve Rogers was at the park, regretting his decision to go. Usually going to the park to draw was a good idea for some stress relief after a day of soul-sucking corporate graphic design, but that day everything was reminding Steve of his mom. Every person lounging on a park bench or under a tree was his mom relaxing on a Sunday after church. People feeding the ducks became Steve and his mom seeing who could throw bread the furthest, then picking a duck and making a contest to see whose duck could get to the furthest crumb fastest. Kids climbing trees... they were his best friend Bucky, showing off.

The anniversary of Bucky’s death was coming up, too. It made June a month Steve dreaded.

Unable to keep walking around as he was constantly pummelled with memories of his mother and his best friend, but unwilling to go home and force his mood on his roommate Sam (who’d probably been inundated with enough morosity at work already to have to deal with Steve’s on top of it all) Steve found the quietest place he could. It was far enough away from the path that it almost felt like he’d escaped to a forest somewhere rural, instead of being in the middle of one of the biggest cities in the U.S.

Steve flopped down next to a rose bush and sighed as he stared at it. His mom loved roses. Bucky would wave a bouquet of them under Steve’s nose before a date sometimes. “Girls love flowers, Stevie,” he’d say with a grin. “It’s a fact. Rule number seven of dating: Surprise her with flowers. Don’t need a reason for it. Just do it. They’ll love it.”

Steve pulled his sketchbook out from his work bag. First he drew his mom holding a bouquet of roses, smelling them, her eyes closed. Then he drew Bucky, grinning, holding a single rose out. Steve considered the sketches. It’d been five years since he’d lost them both. Maybe doing a painting of each of them would help with the grief. Or maybe it’d make it worse. But he was already imagining a grayscale portrait of each of them, the roses bearing the only color. Maybe Bucky could be pricking his finger on a thorn, a droplet of blood welling from the wound. Steve tapped his pencil against the paper, sighing. Sam would probably tell him it was morbid, but Steve liked the idea. He reached out to a rose and ran his thumb gingerly across a thorn, feeling the sharpness of it without letting it break skin. The potential for pain was there, and Steve was tempted to squeeze and feel it, just to have something physical to show for the emotional pain that had been trying to consume him all day.

“Don’t pick that.”

The voice startled Steve, turning to see who it was. He wasn’t usually opposed to making conversation with strangers in the park, but today? He really wasn’t in the mood. Ready to reply with a sharp remark, the words died in his throat as he looked over the man addressing him.

Steve’s first thought was that there had to be some kind of Renaissance Faire or LARP going on in the park he didn’t know about, because this guy had to have walked right out of something like that. He was dressed head to toe in black leather armor that he probably had spent way too much money on, judging from the construction and silver detailing on it. The left arm was totally encased in plate armor, which admittedly looked cool, though Steve questioned the practicality of it. Half of the man’s face was hidden behind a black leather mask (the guy apparently really liked black leather), and cold, eerily blue eyes glared at Steve from above the mask. He’d make for an interesting drawing subject if he wasn’t clearly offended by Steve’s very existence.

“Why not?” Steve asked, trying to keep himself calm.

“They’re not yours to pick.”

It was a bad time for anyone to try to tell Steve what he couldn’t do, especially in that tone of voice. The guy might as well have said “I dare you not to.” Steve’s eyes narrowed, and his grip on the flower’s stem tightened.

Roses were hard to pick. Their stems were tough, and the thorns tended to deter most people from picking them at all, much less by hand. But some random Ren Rat had told Steve he wasn’t allowed to, so goddammit, he was going to do it anyway. Because fuck that guy.

It hurt. A lot. The thorns bit into his skin, and by the time Steve was able to pull the rose away from the bush, he could feel blood welling up on his fingers and in his palm. But Steve never looked away from the Ren Rat asshole’s bright blue eyes, and he kept his voice steady.

“Public property.”

The Ren Rat asshole’s gaze flickered down to the flower in Steve’s hand and his brow furrowed. “You’re bleeding.”

“Yeah, well, every rose has its thorns, right?”

“That was an unbelievably stupid thing to do. What are you trying to prove?”

Steve blinked. He was thinking about Bucky too much. He had to be, if this jerk was reminding him of his best friend.

“Nothing. This is a public park, I can pick a flower if I want.”

“It’s not. You’re trespassing.”

“Excuse me?” What the hell kind of delusion was this guy under? “There’s no such thing as trespassing in Central Park. Look, if I’m intruding on your LARP or fucking Ren Faire or whatever, you could just ask me to move like a normal person, without a goddamn mask on, instead of posturing like a complete dick.”

The guy looked taken aback by that, and Steve felt a rush of satisfaction at landing a blow in the only way he really could. But that feeling didn’t last, as the man stepped forward, his eyes narrowing. Fuck. Steve didn’t think he could get into an actual fight with a guy in armor and carrying weapons, even if they were fake. Any person with armor as elaborate as this guy’s had to have at least a little bit of fighting know-how. One of these days, Steve really had to get himself to a self-defense class or something, asthma be damned.

But all the guy did was ask “who are you?” like he couldn’t quite believe what he was seeing.

Steve had that effect on a lot of people. He frowned. “That’s none of your goddamn business. And you got no right asking that when you’re the one wearing a mask.”

The man huffed, a strange half-laugh that was muffled weirdly. He reached up and pulled off his mask.

If it weren’t for the stabbing pain in his hand from the rose’s thorns, Steve would have been certain he was dreaming. Because there was no chance in Hell that he was seeing what he was seeing.

Staring back at him, with too-blue eyes framed by too-long hair, was his best friend.

“Bucky?” It came out as a gasp, and Steve could feel, as if it were happening to someone else, his heart racing and his breath starting to quicken. If he wasn’t careful, a frustratingly calm part of him noted, he’d start to hyperventilate, and maybe he’d have an asthma attack. And wouldn’t that be an embarrassing way to react to the ghost of your best friend.

Bucky--it couldn’t be Bucky, it was impossible, but it _was_ \--looked confused. “Who the hell is Bucky?” he asked.

“You are!” Steve blurted out. “But that’s… that’s impossible, you died, in Iraq, you got a military funeral and everything, I was _there._ ”

“You’re mistaken.”

“Then _you_ explain why you look like a hobo Ren Rat alternate universe version of my dead best friend!” Fuck, this really wasn’t good, he had to calm down…

“I am the Winter Knight, and mortals like you should not be in Faerie lands.”

That stopped Steve right in his tracks. For a moment he just stared. This had to be a dream, or a hallucination, because there was no way he could actually be here, with Bucky looking like that, saying _that._

“Please tell me I’m dreaming.”

“You’re not.”

“Because it really sounds like you got brainwashed by LARPers.”

“I don’t know what that means.”

“Well if you’re not Bucky then at least tell me who you _really_ are. Please, just tell me I’m not crazy, _please._ ”

“You need to leave.”

“I’m not leaving until I know what’s going on!”

Bucky--or whoever it was--looked frustrated and confused, which Steve could relate to.

“Steve, you’re bleeding. You need to go take care of that.”

Steve leaped on that, gesturing at Bucky with the rose wildly.

“I didn’t tell you my name. Drop the act, Bucky, tell me what’s going on.”

Bucky stepped back, looking absolutely horrified. “I didn’t… I don’t…”

Unwilling to back down, even with Bucky looking so upset, Steve pressed his advantage. “Bucky, come _on._ This isn’t _funny._ I thought you were _dead._ ”

Abruptly, Bucky’s expression changed from confused and upset to _livid,_ and he pulled a sword, swinging the tip of it to barely a centimeter from Steve’s nose.

“ _Stop_ ,” he growled, and Steve stared at the sword, horror blanketing everything else. That was a real sword. Bucky was pointing a _real sword_ at him. What the fuck was going on?

“You are going to go home,” Bucky said slowly, angrily, “and you are going to forget you saw me. You are never going to come back here, do you understand?”

As Bucky spoke, Steve felt a slowly growing pressure on his brain, like an oncoming migraine. He struggled for breath, the humidity suddenly getting to him like an aggressive fog, pushing at him from all sides. Bucky’s words sounded… almost convincing. Reasonable. A part of him wanted to do exactly what he said.

But the rest of him was so adamantly opposed to the idea that he fought off the thought.

“Bucky…”

But Bucky was turning and leaving, walking purposefully away through the trees.

“Bucky, wait! _Bucky!_ ” Steve ran forward, but Bucky had already disappeared. Steve took another few steps, looking around wildly, but Bucky was gone, like Steve had imagined him after all.

His heart hammering in his chest, Steve sat down, trying to catch his breath. He stared at his hand, still clutching the rose, smeared with sticky blood, though the bleeding was slowing to a stop.

What the _hell_ had just happened?

 

The migraine didn’t go away, and it only got worse as Steve went home. Every step he took he went over the entire encounter in his head, trying to parse out what had happened. Why Bucky had been acting so strangely? How he could possibly show up in Central Park after five years, when everyone thought he was dead?

Steve knew he wasn’t imagining it. He _wasn’t._ Though the longer he thought about it, the more he started to doubt himself.

As soon as he got home, Steve dumped his back in the entryway, kicked off his shoes, and went straight to the bathroom, walking past Sam in the living room on the way.

“Hey man, you go to the park today?”

Steve ignored him and locked the bathroom door behind him. He took off his glasses, took out his hearing aids, and pinched his nose, taking a few deep breaths. He reminded himself that he didn’t have a history of hallucinations or mental illness. He had seen Bucky in Central Park. Bucky, who had been killed in action five years ago. Bucky, who had remembered Steve’s name, even if he apparently couldn’t remember his own.

Steve opened his eyes and stared at his blurry reflection in the mirror. Some kind of conspiracy-level bullshit was going on, and he was going to get to the bottom of it.

Somehow.

If his brain wasn’t the one bullshitting him. Which he really, really hoped it wasn’t.

Steve carefully washed his hands, bandaged the thorn punctures on his right hand, popped some aspirin, put his glasses and his hearing aids back on, and went back out to the living room. Sam was already looking concerned.

“You okay?”

Steve thought about that for a moment. “That’d be a resounding ‘no.’”

Sam nodded slowly. “We talking physical or emotional?”

“Both.”

Sam nodded again. “Anything I can do to help?”

Steve sighed and was about to reply with “no, thanks,” but Sam put up a hand to stop him.

“Hey, look. I know you’re usually all about going it alone, and I appreciate that you don’t unload all your problems on me like I’m your own personal live-in therapist, but Steve. Come on. I’m your friend. It’s okay to talk to me.” He paused a moment, then added, “besides. You look like shit. What the hell happened?”

Steve struggled with himself. On the one hand, he really wanted to talk to _somebody_ about what had happened, but on the other, he _knew_ how crazy it sounded. He sat down in the chair across from Sam and stared at his hands. The right one still ached, and his migraine wasn’t going away yet.

Sam was quiet, waiting for Steve to talk, which Steve was grateful for.

“So. I’m pretty sure I saw Bucky at the park today.”

Steve resolutely stared at his hands. He really, _really_ didn’t want to look up and see Sam staring at him like he’d sprouted two heads, or like Steve’s puppy had just died in his arms, which is what Steve was pretty sure he’d see. It was bad enough that the silence stretched on for as long as it did.

“You sure about that, Steve?” Sam’s voice was gentle, concerned, and it made Steve want to punch him. He leveled Sam with the most stern expression he could muster.

“Yes, Sam, I am absolutely sure.” Because fuck it, he wasn’t going to back down now. And yeah, now that he was looking at him, Sam was definitely giving him the overly-concerned friend expression.

Sam sighed. “Steve,” he began, but Steve really didn’t want to hear it.

“Before you start, yes, I know Bucky’s been dead five years, I realize I’m in an overly emotional state because of it. But Sam, I saw him. I did. He looked like one of those Ren Faire enthusiasts. He pointed a sword at me. How could I imagine that? _Why_ would I imagine that? If I was going to imagine him, he’d be… he’d be like he was before he left and he’d…” Steve stopped himself there. He and Sam talked about a lot of stuff, but his unrequited crush on Bucky was something he hadn’t ever wanted to go into, though he was pretty sure Sam had figured that one out. But it didn’t matter. Because Bucky was dead, and Steve had moved on. Not that his last two attempts at relationships had thought so, but it didn’t matter. Anyway, apparently Bucky wasn’t dead after all.

“The brain is a delicate organ, there’s all sorts of reasons you could’ve thought you’d seen…”

“Goddammit Sam, you’re not my shrink, you’re my friend!”

“You’re right, and as your friend, I think maybe you should think a little about what you’re saying.”

“You think I haven’t? I’ve been thinking about it the whole way back, Sam!”

Sam rubbed his face and lifted his hands in surrender. “Okay, okay. Just… why don’t you have a seat and calm down and tell me exactly what happened?”

Steve didn’t particularly want to calm down, but he knew arguing with Sam wasn’t going to get him anywhere. So he sat, and he related what happened. Maybe he glossed over the rose bit a little, but he could see the way Sam frowned and looked down at his hand, guessing at what he wasn’t quite saying. But Sam didn’t say anything so Steve kept going.

When he was done, Sam was quiet. Steve waited, getting antsy.

“You gonna say something?”

“That’s a hell of a story, Steve.”

“Yeah, and it all happened.”

Sam sighed.

“It _did,_ Sam.”

“Look, maybe it was just…”

Steve groaned and put his face in his hands. “Please, Sam. I’ve had a hell of a day. Please, can’t you just believe me?”

Sam was silent. Steve felt the sudden urge to cry, but he took deep breaths and swallowed it back. If he started crying now, it felt like he’d never be able to stop.

“Steve. Steve, hey. Look at me.”

Steve took another deep, shuddering breath, and looked up.

“Something happened. I believe you. Maybe that guy was Bucky, maybe not. How are we going to find out for sure? You said he just walked off.”

Steve blinked, his face tight and his head aching, and he knew with sudden clarity what he had to do. “I have to go back,” he said. “I have to find him.”

Sam was quiet a moment. “Alright. Then I’m going with you.”

Steve glanced outside. The sun was starting to set. But if they went quickly, they could get back to the park before it got dark. He looked back at Sam.

“You ready to go now?”

Sam shrugged. “I got nothing else to do tonight. Hell. Let’s go ghost hunting.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> For the record, [this](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c3yTEUnyYDA) is the version of Tam Lin that inspired me to write this fic.
> 
> Come say hi to me on [tumblr!](http://waffilicious.tumblr.com/)
> 
> The tumblr post for the artwork is [here,](http://maichan-art.tumblr.com/post/149861558146/maichan808-here-is-my-third-and-final-stucky) please like and reblog! Mai did such an amazing job, I will never get over it.
> 
> (Edited first chapter because the embedded art link broke :( )


	2. Chapter 2

Central Park in June was a popular place; in order to get back to the quiet little nook where Steve had seen Bucky, Steve and Sam had to navigate through families, couples out for a stroll, runners, people walking their dogs… it felt pretty crowded. That combined with how the aspirin didn’t seem to have done anything for Steve’s headache meant Steve was feeling just a touch overstimulated. Every barking dog or screaming child made Steve wince and want to turn down the volume on his hearing aids. He focused on Sam talking, the way he was keeping his conversation light, bringing up the woman he’d met at a bar recently and had started going on coffee dates with. Steve asked a few questions, but it was hard for him to pay full attention to Sam’s descriptions of Claire when he kept getting distracted by his own thoughts of Bucky.

When they finally got to the spot with the rose bushes, Steve spread his arms. “Well, here we are.”

Sam nodded, hands on his hips as he looked around. “Alright, so what do you want to do? Hang out and look at the flowers?” His tone was light, teasing, and Steve rolled his eyes.

“I figure we should look around for a Ren Faire or a group of LARPers or whatever.”

“Makes sense. Which way did he go when he ran off?”

Steve pointed, and they started off in that direction. They walked for about five minutes, the foliage getting thicker and darker, a deeper green, the park feeling less like a park and more like a real forest. Sam and Steve came to a stop at roughly the same time, looking around in confusion.

“Now, correct me if I’m wrong, I mean I love Central Park as much as the next guy, but it’s not… it’s not _this_ nice, right?” Sam was sounding concerned. It was one thing to get a little turned around in the park, maybe even a little lost, but it was never quite this… intense. Looking around, Steve struggled to find any evidence he was still in a city at all. He pulled out his phone and was about to pull up Google Maps when he noticed there was no signal. That, if anything, was more startling to him than an unexpected change in scenery.

Sam, looking over his shoulder, frowned. “Is this where we make a Wizard of Oz joke?”

“Depends. You guys come from Kansas? Because that’d be a new one.”

Steve and Sam whipped around to find two men approaching them from the dark forest. They were, for the most part, normal, middle-aged guys. One had shaggy curly hair and looked completely uncomfortable in his own skin, like he wanted to apologize for his entire existence. The other carried himself with ten times more confidence, had a goatee and wore a suit, and, weirdly, had red and gold metal gauntlets.

“Nice gloves,” Sam said.

The stranger grinned. “Thanks!” He nudged his companion with his elbow. “See, Banner? Some people have _taste._ ”

“And some people have subtlety,” the other man replied softly.

“Ouch. So where you guys from? It’s been awhile since we’ve had visitors.”

Sam and Steve exchanged a look.

“Visitors to where?” Steve asked suspiciously.

The man with the gauntlets clapped his hands, which made an uncomfortably jarring noise that didn’t help Steve’s headache at all, and pointed at them excitedly.

“Congratulations, you two are lucky accidental travelers to the Seelie lands, home of faeries and elves and magic and shit.”

Steve and Sam stared. Sam let out a sharp laugh, then stared again.

“You’re shitting me,” he accused.

“Nope,” Gauntlets said.

“I’m afraid not, though I wouldn’t have put it quite like that,” Curly added.

Steve took off his glasses and pinched the bridge of his nose hard.

“What the hell,” Sam was saying. “What the _hell._ ”

“Oh boy, this is more fun than I thought it would be,” Gauntlets said.

“Be nice,” his friend pleaded.

Steve was feeling dizzy. He felt himself sway on his feet a little, and he mentally cursed himself. This was not what he was hoping for when they’d set out to find some sign of Bucky. He took a deep breath and put his glasses back on and glared at Gauntlets.

“Look, I don’t care how much fun your imaginary games are. About three hours ago I saw my friend around here somewhere and I need to find him. I think he might be in trouble.”

The two strangers exchanged a glance.

“You’re the only two from your world who’ve crossed over in about twenty years,” Curly said.

Steve turned his glare on Curly and walked right up to him, poking him in the chest and ignoring Sam’s “whoa, Steve…”

“Look, cut it out with the LARP bullshit. I thought he was _dead,_ and suddenly I see him dressed up in armor and wearing swords and calling himself the Winter Knight and not recognizing me even though he _knew my name._ Tell me what the hell is going on, this _isn’t funny._ ”

Suddenly Gauntlets had a hand on Steve’s shoulder. Steve brushed it off, irritated.

“Hold up, did you say _Winter Knight?”_

“Yeah, I did, you gonna make a hilarious joke about that, too?”

Curly was shaking his head, and Gauntlets was clearly out of joking mode. At least, Steve hoped he was. He was really done with the jokes.

“So wait,” Gauntlets said. “Let me get this straight. Not only did you have a run-in with the Winter Knight and walk away from it completely unscathed, you think he’s your friend.”

“I _know_ he’s my friend.”

Gauntlets laughed sharply. “The Knight isn’t anybody’s _friend,_ kiddo. He’s a killer. A menace. Unseelie trash with no respect for life or the order of the universe.”

“Stark,” Curly said, probably trying to placate him.

“No, Banner, don’t you even start with that bullshit. I got a right to be pissed off.”

“I know you do, but think about who we’re with right now.”

Gauntlets--Stark?--glared at Steve and Sam. Steve was already tense and on edge, and hearing his best friend called a murderer and _trash_ wasn’t helping at all. Out of the corner of his eye, Steve could see Sam wasn’t too happy either. He’d never met Bucky, but they’d both served in Iraq, and Sam didn’t like hearing talk like that about any veterans.

Stark and Steve glared at each other for a minute.

“You mind telling me what the hell is going on?” Steve asked, frustrated.

“Your pal killed my parents. They were King and Queen of the Seelie Court, by the way, not that it means anything to you.”

“Whoa,” Sam said, holding up his hands. “Okay I think you guys are taking this LARP business way too far.”

“You think I’m making this up?” Stark was just about sputtering in anger. “You think this is a joke? A game? Fine. I’ll prove it.”

“Stark…” Banner said again.

“No. Dorothy needs to learn he really isn’t in Kansas anymore.”

Despite the absurdity of the situation--two grown men claiming the Ren Faire bullshit was real and then completely sticking with the story--Steve felt threatened by Stark’s tone. But he didn’t step back, didn’t give ground. This asshole with the gauntlets could posture as much as he wanted, but Steve refused to be intimidated.

Stark made a strange motion with his hands and the gauntlets grew, stretching up his arms and across his body, like pieces of an entire suit of armor were unfolding into existence across his body. In just a couple of seconds, Stark was fully armored in a gaudy red and gold suit, a helmet covering his face, and silver-blue light emanating from his hands.

Sam stepped back, swearing. Steve held his ground. Alright, so maybe this wasn’t playing pretend after all.

“That’s impressive,” Steve said, trying to look like he wasn’t impressed at all.

“Yeah, you like this, you should see Banner here when he turns into a giant green rage monster.”

“No, you shouldn’t,” Banner immediately said.

“So what is that, NASA tech? Military issue?” Steve swallowed, fighting his racing heartbeat to stay calm, even though in his mind he was starting to freak out. He was beginning to realize maybe he was in way over his head.

“Magic,” Stark replied, and the silver-blue light glowed brighter, at both his hands and feet, and he lifted off into the air, flying around just under the canopy and deftly avoiding branches. “Though there’s some science mixed in. Me and Banner, we like checking in on your world, learning about your advancements, and using them to enhance our own stuff.” He was sounding almost gleeful behind his helmet, his anger from a moment before gone for now.

Banner sighed, rolling his eyes. “He’s a showoff. I’d apologize for him, but…”

“But I’m not sorry!” Stark shouted, executing an impressive loop before landing. He made another hand motion and the armor folded away back into nonexistence.

Steve took a quick look at Sam. Former pararescueman that he was, Sam looked like he was both enthralled and a little bit in shock. Steve nudged him with an elbow. “You okay?”

Sam snapped out of it and nodded. “Yeah man, I’m fine. Great. Hey, where can I get one of those?”

Stark grinned. “I like you. You’ve got good taste, even if you are friends of a friend of a murderer. Anyway, the suit’s one of a kind. I’d have to really _really_ like you to make you anything like it.”

“Look, I hate to interrupt,” Steve said, “but if we really are in a different world, then my friend definitely doesn’t belong here. I need to find him and bring him home.”

Stark’s smile disappeared and Banner stepped forward. “We don’t know where he is. The Winter Knight is something of a ghost story--he pops up without any warning, destroys villages and kills people, then disappears. Or he targets an individual of power and standing and assassinates them. He’s been single-handedly forcing the Seelie Court’s hand in the war.”

Steve blinked. It all sounded horrible, and he couldn’t believe Bucky would do anything like it, but his whole world was in the process of being turned upside down and inside out, and he couldn’t even begin to figure out where to start with all of that.

Luckily, he wasn’t alone.

“I’m sorry, _war_? What war?” Sam asked.

“Between the Seelie and the Unseelie,” Banner clarified. “Two different courts… like countries. There’s always been friction, but for the past few centuries, since King Stark was killed, it’s been war.”

“And… _Bucky_ started it?” Steve asked, incredulous.

“Well, yes, but we’re fairly certain it was at King Fury’s order, though he’s denied it.”

“Fury’s a liar,” Stark spat. “Everyone knows that. All the Unseelie are, they bend the truth around to suit their own needs.”

“Wait,” Sam said. “You said _centuries._ ”

“Yeah, Bucky only… went missing five years ago.”

Stark waved his hand dismissively. “Time runs differently between our worlds. It runs in cycles. One cycle a few centuries will pass in your world and only a week will pass here. The next, it’s the other way around. This past cycle’s been running the latter way, so if you’re worried about going home and becoming Rip Van Winkle, I wouldn’t. Chances are you’ll get back only a few seconds after you left.”

“So this isn’t Oz, it’s Narnia,” Sam said.

“Yeah, basically.”

“Okay, but how do we find Bucky?” Steve asked.

Banner and Stark exchanged a look.

“I think we should bring you to talk to Pierce,” Stark said.

“He’s the current King,” Banner explained. “He knows what’s going on more than we do. He’ll be able to point you in the right direction.”

“Also he’d want us to bring any intruders to him _anyway,_ so it’s killing two birds with one stone.”

“Are we the birds?” Steve asked.

Stark grinned, and that look alone chilled Steve more than anything else he’d heard so far. “Maybe,” he said.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm on [tumblr!](http://waffilicious.tumblr.com/) Come say hi!


	3. Chapter 3

Apparently, “going to talk to Pierce” meant trekking through the dense forest for a couple more hours, but this time with the benefit of two guides - one of whom  _ wouldn’t shut up. _ After finally introducing themselves (Gauntlets was, in fact, “Stark,” and Curly, “Banner”), the two men had shown Sam and Steve to a well-worn path that wasn’t  _ quite _ a road but was a bit more than a hiking trail. They explained that while it was a journey of several days to the court proper on foot, there was a “shortcut” a few miles away.

“What kind of shortcut are we talking about here?” Sam asked.

“The  _ magical _ kind,” Stark said with a grin, waggling his fingers in what only could be jazz hands.

“Is that it? You’re not gonna explain it any further?” Steve was really starting to dislike the whole “magic” business and how it seemed to excuse Stark from explaining anything at all.

Stark scoffed. “Oh, like you’d understand if I told you.”

Banner rolled his eyes. “It’s called a fairy ring,” he explained patiently. “There’s several of them positioned at strategic points throughout the land. They’re magically connected, so that when you step into one, you can speak the name of any of the other rings in the network and be transported there instantly.”

“Oh, so like in Star Trek,” Steve said.

“Or Floo Powder,” Sam added.

“Well yeah, except much more elegant than taking you apart into individual molecules and then reassembling you, or making you stand in open flame and shooting you through chimneys.” Stark sounded offended.

“How do you even  _ know _ those references?” Sam asked. “You’re not even  _ from _ Earth. Do you have magic TV or something? Cross-world interlibrary loan?”

Stark threw his hands in the air. “You guys are interesting, okay? Like, yeah, we totally have books and movies and shit, but you do things  _ completely _ differently! All your stories are different! You don’t have any magic, so you make it up and come up with crazy ideas, but then you do the exact same thing with science, which you  _ do _ have. The mortal capacity for imagination is completely unlike anything we’ve got. I mean, we have to go out of our way to steal ideas from you because if we don’t, we stagnate completely!”

Sam blinked at that, and Steve struggled with the concept, especially the off-hand mention of  _ fairy movies _ .

“What…” But Banner stepped in to explain, which he was so clearly comfortable doing that Steve was suspecting more and more was Banner’s function in conversations involving Stark.

“We live, theoretically, forever.”

“Theoretically?”

“Interrupting! Steve, rude.”

“Yes, theoretically. We can still die, but under ideal circumstances, we don’t. Part of what drives mortals to create like you do is the need to leave a mark on the world, on history, a proof of your existence, and a desire to see a thing done in your lifetime by your own two hands. Without the fear of death, we don’t have such a drive. It’s laziness, in a way.”

“Excuse you.”

Banner sighed. “Unless you’re Stark, who is obsessed with progress.”

“It’s a healthy obsession!”

“If you say so.”

“It is!”

Banner just shrugged. Stark let out a noise of frustration.

“ _ Anyway _ , I like popping in on your world and checking things out and seeing how I can bring things over. To us, magic is a kind of science, and your science is a kind of magic.”

“Any sufficiently advanced technology…?” Steve started, but Stark cut him off with a gesticulation and a noncommittal noise.

“Not really. Just different kinds of science.”

“Right.” Steve wasn’t really as skeptic as his tone of voice made him sound. Honestly, it was all fascinating to him, though he was starting to suspect that maybe this was all one extremely weird fever dream and he just couldn’t remember getting sick. But really, he just didn’t like getting talked down to by Stark. The guy was condescending at best, and Steve hated being talked to like he was an idiot or a child. Banner was okay, though.

Stark shrugged. “Believe it or not, I don’t care. You’re here now, you’ll see it for yourself.”

Steve scowled and looked at Sam, who was looking right back at him. Sam shrugged.

“Look man, I don’t know. I’m expecting to wake up any second and find out I fell asleep watching Game of Thrones.”

“You’d never fall asleep to Game of Thrones.”

“Okay, true. Fellowship, extended edition.”

“Bullshit. You’d be too busy tearing up at Gandalf’s death.”

“That shit’s emotional, man! Give me a break!”

Steve rolled his eyes, but he was grinning. Despite their unbelievable circumstances, Sam was managing to lighten his mood somewhat. But then Stark jumped onto the Game of Thrones comment and started pestering Sam about it, and within a couple of minutes, Sam had gotten pulled into a deep discussion of the show with an immortal man from another world  _ in _ another world.

Steve sighed and lagged behind a few steps. He thought about Bucky, thought about his armor and wild hair and eyes, thought about that mask and how dangerous he looked. What the hell had happened? Had he really been there for  _ centuries? _ How was he still alive? How had he gotten there in the first place?

Lost in thought, he didn’t even notice Banner walking next to him until he spoke.

“I’m sorry about Stark,” he said softly, startling Steve a little. Steve took a breath and shrugged.

“Not your fault he’s a dick.”

Banner smiled. “Maybe not, but I feel compelled to apologize for him anyway. He’s… rather single-minded in his enthusiasm. But he’s also a genius, and doesn’t really mean you any harm.”

Steve snorted, not much comforted by Banner’s words. “I’ll keep that in mind.”

Banner was quiet for a moment, looking over Steve. “You really think the Winter Knight is your friend?”

“Yes,” Steve said. “I don’t know how it’s possible, but I know what I saw. So unless someone is playing a huge, elaborate prank on me…”

Banner shook his head. “No, unfortunately it makes sense. No one knows where the Knight came from before he assassinated the monarchs. He simply appeared, and from then on he was a nightmare for the entire court that we couldn’t wake up from.”

Steve clenched his teeth. “He’s not… he’s not  _ like _ that.” He couldn’t be. Steve couldn’t reconcile the memory of the friend he grew up with, the friend he… well, if he was going to be completely honest with himself, which even now he was having trouble doing, the friend he fell in love with.

Banner shrugged, which was an infuriatingly casual response in Steve’s opinion. “Clearly something happened to make thim that way.” He paused, thinking. Ahead of them, Sam and Stark were deep in conversation about someone named “Lady Stoneheart,” and Steve hoped they were still talking about TV and not someone they were about to meet.

“If he really is your friend…” Banner said hesitantly, “you may be able to find out fairly easily, assuming you’re able to catch him again.”

Steve blinked in surprise. “How?”

“Say his true name. His full name. Not now, of course, don’t tell  _ me, _ ” Banner added quickly. “For that matter, don’t tell anyone here  _ your _ true name, or Sam’s. Names have an incredible amount of power here. Know someone’s true name and you know their true selves, and can exert a degree of control over them. If you speak your friend’s name to the Knight, and he responds…” Banner trailed off.

“Then what?”

“I don’t know, honestly. But hopefully, when the time comes, you will.”

Steve frowned. “I’m not sure how helpful that is.”

Banner smiled. “I know, and I’m sorry. But it’s better than nothing.”

Steve nodded slowly. “Yeah. Thanks.” It was something to think about, anyway. Something to try. Assuming they could find Bucky again.

“Is there…” Steve hesitated with his question before continuing. “Are there a lot of people from…  _ my _ world who come over here and stay? Or is it… uncommon?”

Banner considered that. “I’m not sure. Travelers from your world to ours are fairly rare, much more than vice versa, mostly because your kind don’t know about us, or how to cross over, so anytime it happens it’s more or less an accident. From what I’ve heard, usually they travel around a bit, then find a way back, either with our help or without, but… yes, there are some occasions when they’ll stay, either because they don’t want to go back or because they  _ can’t _ for whatever reason. It’s rare, I think, very rare, but it’s happened. In the case of your friend, it may be that something prevented him from returning, and then he simply… forgot.”

“That simple, huh.”

“Well… no, not really, but without any more information, I can only speculate. Pierce might know more. He tends to keep his cards close to his chest.”

Steve frowned, but he nodded. He didn’t particularly like the sound of a monarch who kept information from his people, but it wasn’t like that was any different from the politicians he was familiar with. He couldn’t really judge the guy until he’d met him. 

“We’re almost at the ring now,” Banner said softly. “We may not be able to get you an audience right away, but I’ll make sure you’re well taken care of until the King can see you.” Banner smiled a little. “Of course, that you’ll be there to discuss the Knight  _ and _ you’re here from Earth will put you up on the list.”

Steve snorted. “Comforting,” he said, not at all comforted.

They walked a bit further, Steve and Banner in silence and Sam and Stark still intensely arguing about Game of Thrones. Steve would have been amazed that anyone could talk about a TV show for that long, except he could remember specific conversations with Sam about Star Trek which had gone on for even longer. He looked at the forest around them with curiosity, noting how the trees were bigger and older looking than any he’d seen in New York, their leaves whispering musically in a breeze Steve couldn’t quite feel. He looked up at the sky only to find he could only see glimpses of sky between the boughs high above. Night hadn’t quite fallen, and the glimmers of sky glowed orange red and faded slowly to purple, blue, black. The forest around them was already growing dark, but there were lights in the trees, little twinkles and sparkles like starlight hanging in the branches. Steve could feel the itch in his fingers to draw it, capture how beautiful the forest was, and the creeping sense of danger he felt from its depths as it got darker and darker.

Banner leaned in close and murmured, “we’ve got good timing. If we’d taken any longer we’d have to worry about the nightlife.”

Steve frowned at him. “What, you mean like bears or something?”

Banner shrugged. “Something.”

Steve opened his mouth to ask what, but the forest opened up into a clearing, and Stark was excitedly gesturing.

“Here we are!”

Steve looked. The clearing wasn’t large, about as big as his whole apartment, and all there was in it was grass and flowers, delicate little white blooms that grew in a large circle.

“Is that it?” He asked.

“Don’t sound so impressed,” Stark scoffed. “You’ll see.”

Steve sighed and Sam shrugged at him. “Just go along for the ride, alright? What else are we going to do?”

Sam was right, of course, and though Steve glowered, he turned his attention back to Stark, who was waving for them to join them inside the circle of flowers.

They stepped in the ring, and Steve immediately felt a slight buzz against his skin, like an oncoming thunderstorm or a slight electric shock. The hair on his arms lifted, and he shivered and glanced up at the sky, where unfamiliar stars were winking into existence. He felt like he could get lost in them, and if it weren’t for Sam nudging him with his elbow, he may have.

“Hey. We’re about to be teleported magically. Maybe stay with me, huh?”

Steve nodded slowly, and Sam smiled, though Steve could see that despite it, he was scared. It was a shock to realize, since Sam had seemed so calm so far, and Steve sucked in a breath. He nudged Sam back.

“Yeah, Sam. I’m here.”

Sam’s smile softened, and Steve sighed. He was scared too. Scared of this place they’d somehow found themselves in, scared of the strangers who’d found them, scared they’d never find Bucky. Scared of what Bucky had become. Scared they’d never make it home. But they couldn’t both be scared. And Steve had dragged Sam into this, whatever this was. It was his fault. So he swallowed down his fears and squared his shoulders and put on the face he showed his friends when he had to be the strong one. The face he showed people after the death of his mother. Of Bucky. It was a smile. A smile no one could see through. A smile to hide everything going on behind it, and convince people that everything was fine.

“We’ll be alright, Sam. We’ll get home.” He reached out and took Sam’s hand, squeezed it. “We’ll be alright.”

Sam blinked. Steve couldn’t tell if he recognized the smile or not, but he nodded, and squeezed Steve’s hand back.

“Hold onto your hats, kids, here we go!” Stark said brightly. He spoke two words which meant nothing to Steve, but which must have been the name of their destination. Steve took a breath--

 

\--and everything shifted. It was like stepping into a strong wind and feeling it carry you miles and miles, except at the same time it felt like they moved nowhere at all. Steve realized he’d blinked. When he opened his eyes, everything had changed.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> As always, comments and kudos are loved and treasured, and feel free to come check me out on [tumblr!](http://waffilicious.tumblr.com/)


	4. Chapter 4

They had arrived in a garden of some kind, bordered by white marble walls, ornately carved with columns and figures posed in scenes that probably told some kind of story if Steve got the time to stop and look at them closely. The garden itself was delicate and floral, impeccably tended, with carefully groomed trees at artful intervals. Coming into such an obviously tended place made it suddenly clear just how wild the forest they’d been in was. Steve wondered what would have happened if Stark and Banner hadn’t found them. It made him uneasy, in part to consider the danger retrospectively, but also because he didn’t particularly want to feel indebted to Stark in any way. The man really hadn’t made a good first impression, and wasn’t doing a spectacular job of changing that at all.

“Welcome to the Summer Palace, home of the Seelie Court,” Stark said grandly. “That wasn’t so bad, was it?”

Steve glanced at Sam, who looked about as surprised as Steve felt. Steve shrugged, and Sam’s face split into a grin.

“Piece of cake” Sam said, and laughed as he looked around. “Kudos to the gardener, this place looks great.”

Stark grinned and opened his mouth, but Banner put up a hand and interrupted him sharply. “ _ Don’t _ make the green thumb joke, it was old the last ten times, and they wouldn’t even understand.” He sighed a little and smiled shyly. “Gardening is something of a hobby of mine, so I guess I’ll take that compliment.”

“Seriously man?” Sam looked impressed. “That’s fantastic, good work.”

Stark rolled his eyes. “He’s a party pooper. Whatever. Let’s get you guys settled, I’m betting Pierce won’t be able to see you until tomorrow anyway.”

He started off through the garden, Banner close behind, and Steve and Sam followed, having nothing better to do and nowhere else to go.

They were led through marble halls. Every now and then they passed someone, and Steve was starting to get a real Ren Faire vibe again, both from the palace and from the outfits he saw. The color palette was mostly bright colors, but the dominant choices were reds and golds. Steve wondered if it was the fashion or something else. Many people they passed would stop and nod or bow respectfully, mostly to Stark, who alternately greeted people cheerfully but absently, or ignored them completely as he started to ramble about where to put Steve and Sam, how this really shouldn’t be his problem, and where the hell was Pepper anyway oh there she is.

That last part was said as a tall redheaded woman dressed smartly in what could only be the Ren Faire equivalent of a business suit. She walked straight toward them with a sense of purpose and an expression that seemed to both delight and terrify Stark, and Steve immediately liked her.

“Where the hell have you been? Pierce was expecting you to make an appearance today.”

“Well here I appear.”

She rolled her eyes. “Yes, well done. And I see you’ve bought home strays.”

“Can we keep them?”

“Ha ha. I expect you’ll be wanting me to take care of them?”

“Pretty please? You know how much the staff hates it when I try to meddle.”

“Yes, well, you’re remarkably efficient at getting in everyone’s way at once.”

“I do try my hardest.”

She sighed and turned her attention to Banner, smiling kindly at him. “Hi Banner.”

“Hi Pepper.”

“He’s still dragging you around? You know you can say no.”

Banner shrugged. “It’s more interesting than my lab.”

“If you say so.”

“It’s absolutely true,” Stark interjected. Pepper ignored him and looked over to Steve and Sam. Steve stood up very straight and looked right back. Out of the corner of his eye, he could see Sam giving her a dazzling smile.

She extended her hand to Sam first, then to Steve after they’d shaken. Her grip was firm.

“My name is Pepper. I’m sorry you had to deal with Stark all the way here. You’re mortals? When did you cross over?”

“A few hours ago,” Stark answered, apparently eager for Pepper’s attention again, like a puppy. “Found them wandering the forest like little lost lambs or something else cute and fluffy. And lost.”

“Stark,” Pepper said, exasperated, “I didn’t ask you. You’re being rude to our guests.”

“Oh, I beg forgiveness,” he said, and bowed low.

Pepper swatted the back of his head and looked at Steve and Sam apologetically. “I can get you dinner and rooms. Clothes too, if you need them. His Majesty has retired for the evening, but I’m sure he’ll want to meet you both tomorrow. He’s always interested to speak with travelers.”

“Yeah, we’d like to talk to him, too,” Steve said.

“We’re looking for someone,” Sam added.

Pepper looked surprised. “Who?”

“A friend,” Steve said shortly.

Stark leaned in conspiratorially and murmured, “the Winter Knight.”

Pepper gasped. “No.”

Stark waggled his eyebrows. “Yes.”

Pepper looked at Sam and Steve with a new, searching expression.

“That’s… Well if it’s true, the King will definitely want to speak with you.” She turned and looked at Banner. “You know he attacked a village three days ago? That’s part of why Pierce wanted the both of you.”

Steve bristled. He wasn’t about to argue Bucky’s innocence anymore, not when he didn’t have all the facts, but he still really didn’t like hearing these people talk about his best friend like he was a mass murderer. A villain. It was clear they hated him, were scared of him, and Steve couldn’t imagine Bucky,  _ his _ Bucky, as a person that anyone could possibly hate or fear. But he held his tongue for the moment.

“We’ve heard,” Banner said grimly.

Steve could tell they were ready to talk more about it, and he decided he was done. He didn’t want to hear it. He was tired, he was hungry, he was in another dimension or something, and he’d had enough.

“Look,” he snapped. “I hate to interrupt, but that’s my best friend you’re talking about, and just standing around talking about him and how awful he is isn’t going to help me find him at all.”

All eyes turned on him, and for a moment, Steve regretted saying anything, but he straightened his shoulders and crossed his arms and held his ground.

Stark glared and Banner looked sympathetic in a way Steve wasn’t sure he appreciated, but Pepper blinked and nodded.

“Right. I’m sorry. That was really unkind of me. You both need to eat and rest. We’ll help you figure this out tomorrow.”

Banner nodded, and Sam looked relieved--he looked pretty tired and a little strung out too.

Stark was rolling his eyes.

Pepper glared at him. “Right, Stark?”

He threw up his hands. “Yeah, yeah, alright.”

“Good, Pepper said, and turned to Sam and Steve. “Now let’s get you something to eat.”

She led them through the palace, Stark and Banner breaking off to do whatever it was they were going to do, and Steve did his best to map the place in his head. He wasn’t sure how well he was doing, given how tired he was starting to feel. The headache he’d had earlier had mostly worn off somewhere along the way, though it still lingered in the corners of his mind and made him feel exhausted. 

They walked up several flights of stairs, and Pepper spoke softly to them the whole way, talking about the history of the palace, stories of the carvings in the walls and the meaning of the symbols and art. The words washed over Steve. He tried to pay attention, to learn, but it was getting harder and harder to concentrate. She was saying something about a war, which Stark and Banner had mentioned earlier, and more history, and… Well, Steve was just about falling asleep on his feet. He almost did, but he felt a tug on his sleeve. He started, and saw Sam smiling gently at him.

“Hey, we’re almost there.”

“I’m fine,” Steve said, maybe a little too sharply.

“I know,” Sam responded, though his smile suggested he knew better. Steve scoffed softly, but he was grateful for Sam’s presence. He wasn’t entirely sure he could do all this on his own, as much as he’d like to pretend otherwise.

They were brought into a small parlor, lush but comfortable, with a table and chairs and food laid out for them. For a brief moment, Steve was terrified they wouldn’t recognize any of the food, and wouldn’t be able to eat it, but to his relief, it looked--and smelled--familiar and delicious.

“Hey isn’t there some story warning against eating fairy food?” Sam asked quietly.

Pepper heard, and smiled. “Old stories. It used to be that we didn’t know how to cook for mortals, and didn’t particularly care. We’re a bit more attentive now, not that we generally have much cause to be.”

Steve frowned. “That wasn’t very reassuring.”

Pepper shrugged. “There’s not much else I can say. You can either eat the food or not, it’s your choice. You have my assurance it’s safe, though.”

Sam looked over the spread and shrugged. “Looks fine.”

Pepper smiled. “Your rooms are just through those doors in the rest of the suite. I’ll arrange for someone to get clothes for you, appropriate for an audience, and someone will come get you when the King would like to see you.”

“Thanks,” Steve said stiffly. He didn’t have anything against Pepper, but he wasn’t enjoying how people were treating them. Condescending, like they were inherently less than everyone else here.

Pepper wished them goodnight, and Steve and Sam were left alone for the first time since crossing over hours before.

Steve sat heavily in a chair, leaned his elbows on the table, and his head in his hands. He groaned. He felt a hand on his back.

“Hey, let’s eat something before we completely lose it, okay? I’m about two seconds away, myself.”

Steve turned his head and looked at Sam’s kind but definitely harried smile, and he sighed and nodded.

“Yeah. You’re right.” Sam patted his shoulder and sat down across from him, turning his attention to the food and digging in. Steve was quiet for a while, then started to do the same.

He got about halfway through his--admittedly delicious--meal, and looked up at Sam again.

“Sam, did I make a huge mistake in coming here?”

Sam froze mid-bite, staring at Steve, then slowly chewed and swallowed, taking his time before answering.

“We had no idea this was gonna happen, Steve. You saw Bucky, you needed to find out for sure what was going on. That wasn’t a mistake. Coming here?” Sam sighed deeply. “Look, I’m gonna be totally honest, I’m super freaked out and I think we’re in way over our heads. But…” He spread his hands. “We can’t go back now. Literally, we have no idea how to get home ourselves. So I think we have to see this through to the end, whatever that end is, you know? But no, I don’t think we made any mistakes. Not really.”

Steve frowned. “You sure?”

Sam shrugged. “We had no way of knowing what was gonna happen. You can’t prepare for something you have no idea exists. And dude, I love you, but I’m not gonna wander around in an alien forest with you until we die. So I think we made the right call following Stark and Banner here. And maybe this Pierce guy will have answers. At the very least, he’ll probably be able to point us in the right direction.” Sam looked at Steve a moment, then frowned. “If what you’re  _ really _ wondering is if I blame you for all this, you are barking up the wrong tree. I mean, come on. We’ve got way more important things to worry about than who may or may not have started this. Seriously. Magic. We have to worry about magic. And meeting a King. And finding your boy Bucky. Don’t go beating yourself up over stuff you had no control over. We’ve got better things to do.”

Steve frowned again, because Sam had hit the nail on the head. He poked at his food. “Yeah, you’re right.”

“Hell yeah I am. Now finish your dinner, you’re all skin and bones.”

Steve snorted. “Gonna make your momma proud.”

“Already have.” Sam grinned, and they both got back to their food. Steve had to admit, he did feel better after eating, and collapsing into an extremely comfortable bed after certainly didn’t hurt either.

Steve quickly fell into a deep sleep, and the dreams took over. He couldn’t quite remember them when he woke up, but they’d been strange, disturbing, and definitely about Bucky. He woke up with a start, sunlight creeping in through the window, and a sense of dread tugging at the corners of his mind. He still had a headache, which made him groan and shove his head back into his pillow. Thankfully, it  _ had _ gotten better, but the fact it had stuck around was kind of upsetting and added to the unease of the morning.

The servants--and it was so strange to be served like that--left a large breakfast for them, as well as the clothes Pepper had promised. There were baths, and toilets, and even toothpaste, though it came in a jar and tasted different.

Steve put on the provided outfit and stared at himself in the mirror. It was surreal. The style fit in with the rest of the Renaissance Faire-meets-modern world fashion he’d seen so far, but seeing it on his own body… It didn’t look bad. Just strange, especially with the glasses and hearing aids. He wondered what those “magic is our science” people thought of them. No one had mentioned them yet, but then, maybe they hadn’t noticed.

He snorted. Of course they’d noticed. He was a tiny, frail, disabled jackass. People were always judging him, even if they didn’t say anything.

A knock on the door interrupted his thoughts.

“Come on in,” he said, and Sam opened the door, dressed similarly.

“Hey man, how do you feel about these clothes? Weird, right?”

Steve shrugged, and looked at himself again. “They’re clothes.”

Sam rolled his eyes. “Come on, work with me here.”

Steve gave him a look. “Work with what, small talk?”

“Yeah, sure, why not. Gotta ease the tension somehow.”

“Sam, we might be meeting a King today. He’s probably powerful, and he might not like us. What if he sends us home? What if he keeps us here? What if he doesn’t meet with us at all?”

Sam sighed. “Hey, can I give you a hug?”

Steve bristled, but he nodded, and Sam wrapped his arms around Steve and held him close. Sam gave really excellent hugs, and this one was no different. Steve sighed and managed to relax into it.

“This whole situation is messed up. I know. We’re both freaking out. But we’ll make it through, yeah?”

Steve nodded into Sam’s shoulder. “Yeah.”

“No matter what happens. We’ll be okay, ‘cause I’ve got your back and you’ve got mine.”

Steve nodded gain. “Got your six,” he mumbled, and Sam laughed.

“Yeah man, ain’t no one else I’d trust with it.”

Steve smiled a little, his anxiety easing some. “Ditto,” he said, and Sam squeezed him a little tighter.

Another knock on the door pulled them apart, and Pepper walked in with a smile.

“Good morning. Oh, you both look excellent, those colors really suit you.” Steve glanced down at himself, in deep blues, and Sam, in greens.

“Did you sleep well? Eat well?” She sounded actually concerned instead of just politely inquiring, so Steve and Sam nodded and murmured in assent.

“Great,” she smiled. “Well the good news is His Majesty agreed to see you both this morning, so if you’re ready, I can take you down there right away.”

Steve stiffened, his anxiety returning, and though he could see Sam was nervous too, Sam put his hand on Steve’s shoulder, trying to reassure him.

“Yeah. Not like we got anything better to do, right?” Sam grinned, and Pepper laughed.

“I suppose not. Well, come on. His Majesty is eager to meet you both.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Comments and kudos are, as always, extremely appreciated. Come visit me on [tumblr!](http://waffilicious.tumblr.com/)


	5. Chapter 5

They didn’t speak much on the way to the throne room. Pepper gave them some tips on etiquette, but emphasized that it wouldn’t be a problem if they forgot something or slipped up.

“The King isn’t a stickler for formality in private meetings. In general it’s best to err on the side of politeness, but he’ll probably tell you not to worry.”

That didn’t do much to ease Steve’s nerves, but he nodded and attempted a smile that still felt stiff. Pepper smiled back, and Sam took his hand and squeezed it gently a moment as they reached a grand set of doors, wood ornately carved with a man and a woman on each door. They were beautiful carvings, but Steve didn’t have time to admire them, as the doors were pulled open by two guards flanking them, and Pepper led them into the throne room.

The grandeur of the palace they’d seen so far was nothing compared to the golden opulence of the throne room. If Steve had been told to imagine what a faerie throne room would look like, he would have pictured something like Lothlorien--sparkling and golden but intertwined with the trees and one with nature. This was like the very height of the Russian Empire’s luxury. This was wealth and power being shown off to its best angle.

In the middle of it all was the throne, and atop it sat the King.

He was startlingly plain in the midst of all the lavishness, and Steve felt drawn to him if only for the comfort of seeing someone so _normal_ looking surrounded by nearly-blinding decor. The King stood and walked to meet them in the middle of the large room, smiling gently. He almost looked like a businessman from back home, except for the small details in the cut of his suit and the simple golden band circling his head that betrayed the truth.

Pepper bowed, and Sam and Steve stiffly followed her lead.

“Your Majesty, may I present the mortals Steve and Sam, newly arrived from their world just yesterday.”

“Thank you, Pepper. You’ve taken excellent care of our guests. I’ll call if I need you.” He nodded to her, and she gave another bow and left, her heels clicking the whole way. The door shut behind her, and Sam and Steve were left alone with the King, who spread his arms.

“Welcome. It’s a pleasure to meet you, it really is. It’s not often we get visitors. Come, let me take you someplace a little more comfortable. The throne room is fine for formal events, but even I find it a little too intimidating for private conversations.”

He gestured, indicating they should follow, and led them across the room to another, smaller set of doors. Through them was a hallway, and then another set of doors led them into a comfortable sitting room, shelves stacked high with books, plush comfortable chairs arranged in a circle, the decor much more personal looking than anything they’d see so far.

The King motioned for them to sit, and then sat himself, sighing and taking off his circlet and resting it on the table.

“So, let’s not beat around the bush. I’m told you had an encounter with the Winter Knight. Is that true?”

Steve nodded. “Yes, sir.”

The King nodded, leaned back in his chair, and fixed Steve with an intense stare. “Tell me about it. Everything you remember, if you don’t mind. Any information we can get on the Knight might be useful.”

Steve took a breath and glanced at Sam, who nodded encouragingly. Steve was still nervous, but the King had put him somewhat at ease so far. He launched into the story, relating as many details as he could remember, and pointedly ignoring Sam when he talked about how he intentionally hurt himself on the rose’s thorns. The King listened intently, and when he’d finished, nodded.

“This headache you mentioned, are you still suffering from it?”

Steve swallowed. “Well… yeah, kind of.”

The King sat forward and motioned for Steve to lean in, which he did after a moment’s hesitation. The King held out a hand toward Steve’s face, but stopped a few inches away.

“May I?”

Steve frowned, but he nodded. “Yeah, I guess. Sure.”

The King placed his thumb squarely in the middle of Steve’s forehead, and for a moment, Steve felt a strange brushing sensation, as if someone were going through his brain with a soft artist’s brush. It made him shiver. But when the King took his hand away, all traces of his headache were gone. Steve blinked and leaned back, looking suspiciously at the King.

“What did you do?”

The King smiled wryly. “Your friend put a spell on you He was trying to force you to forget the encounter and never return to Faerie, but apparently you have quite the natural resistance to spells of that kind. Interesting.”

Sam frowned, a little incredulous. “Wait, are you saying Steve’s had this spell on him the whole time? How did nobody catch that?”

The King spread his hands. “It was quite a skillful casting, actually. Well hidden, well rooted. I suspect if Steve’s natural resistances weren’t quite as good as they seem to be, the spell would have done exactly as it intended and you wouldn’t be here right now.” He considered Steve with a thoughtful expression. “It is interesting that the Knight would use that particular method, since as far as we know, he doesn’t generally leave witnesses without a particular reason, usually to tell the story or send a message. But he tried to erase your memory completely, which is a tactic we haven’t seen before.”

Steve frowned. “You mean you haven’t seen it _fail_ before. If he’s erasing memories, no one would know.”

The King laughed. “That’s a very good point, thank you. Maybe he is erasing more memories than we know. Regardless, you’ve come here to find him, correct?”

Steve nodded. “Yeah. And bring him home.”

The King nodded thoughtfully. “Well if you can find him and convince him to return with you, you’re welcome to him of course.”

“Stark said the Knight was forcing you into war,” Sam said, the question hanging unspoken at the end of the statement.

“It’s true. We’d had peace--admittedly somewhat uneasy--with the Unseelie for centuries before the Knight appeared and assassinated the previous monarchs. The Unseelie denied involvement, of course, but the Knight’s magic stinks of Unseelie influence, and the Unseelie themselves are habitual liars. No one at court believed them for a second. There was some additional damning evidence of more plots by the Unseelie to restart the war, so it was, unfortunately, inevitable.”

Sam raised his eyebrows, but didn’t say anything to that. Steve could guess what he was thinking. A veteran of Afghanistan, Sam was sensitive to the reasoning behind any conflict. But neither of them knew anything beyond what they’d been told so far, so attempting to get into a discussion here would just be ridiculous.

“So what are we supposed to do?” Steve asked.

The King sighed. “The only thing for it is to give you the tools you need and a guide or two and send you out to find him, I think. Once you’ve found him, you can bring him back here, and we can do our best to find out what’s been done to him to turn him from a mortal into the Knight, and then find a way to help him recover so we can send him home with the two of you.”

Steve was caught off guard by that, because it was pretty much exactly what he’d been hoping for, but he’d thought there would be more negotiating involved. He frowned.

“Just that easy, huh?”

The King raised an eyebrow. “I think you’re underestimating just how much of a problem the Knight has been for us, for centuries.”

“I’ve heard.”

“But you don’t understand. Your history moves so quickly, your lives just a blink in the grand scheme of things. When I say centuries, I really mean _centuries._ We were at peace, and then the Winter Knight destroyed that, and has continued to attack and kill and disrupt our lands, trade, and troop movements for the past _seven hundred years_. Even for us, that is quite a long time. The Unseelie hardly need an army at all, with the Knight on their side. If you can find him, reach him, we would be in your debt.”

“And you’d just… willingly help out the man who’s been terrorizing your people and send him home with no complaint,” Sam said, his suspicion clear.

The King nodded. “We take our debts very seriously.”

Steve and Sam looked at each other. Sam shrugged. Steve sighed. It wasn’t like they had any other options. If the King’s help did come with hidden strings attached, they’d just have to cross that bridge when they came to it. For now, Steve just had to swallow his suspicion and pride and take the help where it was offered.

“Thank you, Your Majesty. We’d be honored to have your help.”

The King smiled. “And we’d be honored to give it. I’ll have Pepper start looking for volunteers to be your guides, and I’ll ask Stark if he’s willing to come up with some weapons and armor for the two of you.”

Steve nodded, then leaned forward. “Sir, is there anything else you can tell us? Anything at all?”

The King spread his hands. “I’m afraid not. But I do think that if anyone has a chance to reach the Knight successfully, it’s probably you. He knew your name. He left you alive. Those are both good signs.”

Steve sighed. He supposed that would have to be enough. They’d find him, regardless. They had to.

 

The next couple of hours were something of a blur. A guard retrieved them from Pierce’s study and brought them to an armory, where a grizzled woman named Mag with gnarled but deft hands fitted them for armor. Partway through the process, Stark breezed in and took over the whole thing.

“Alright short stuff, you wanna get the works? Full armor, sword, shield, magic up the Wazoo?”

Steve grimaced. “No. I really don’t.”

Stark looked skeptical. “I’m not taking you out into the wilderness unarmed, buddy.”

“You? You’re our guide?”

“One of ‘em, anyway.”

Sam frowned. “Isn’t that a conflict of interests?”

“This isn’t Law and Order, and you two need me out there. I’ve got the suit, and I’ve been crawling around these parts since I was a wee lad. Not to mention the recognition factor. People know me. Our little expedition gets some respectability with me around, and trust me, that’s a big deal.”

Steve sighed. He still didn’t like Stark, but he had to take the help that was offered. “Is it just you?” He tried to ask as politely as possible.

“As a matter of fact, Banner’s tagging along too. He’s got a certain grasp of kinds of magic that I don’t, believe it or not. And it’s good to have somebody to bounce ideas off of. So,” he said, clapping his hands together as his tone abruptly shifted from the rambling explanation to something more excited, “what can I put on you fellas?”

Steve sighed. “Something simple, please. I don’t want a ton of magical stuff.” Magic might have been the weapon of choice in this world, but that didn’t mean he had to like it, or trust it. Besides, he wasn’t sure he’d know how to use it anyway.

Stark rolled his eyes. “Okay, boring, but if you insist. How about you?”

Sam shifted a little, looking nervous. “You uh… you wouldn’t be able to give me a pair of wings, would you?”

Steve and Stark both stared in surprise. Sam shrugged, laughing self-consciously and scratching a hand through his hair. “My pararescue troop, it uh… we had some experimental military tech, these awesome wings and… well. It’d be really great to fly again.”

“Huh.” Stark looked thoughtful and excited, the look of a man who was eager to tackle an interesting puzzle. “Well building that from scratch would take time we don’t have, but I might be able to use some stuff from some of my other projects…” he nodded slowly. “Yeah. I think I can make that work for you.” Before Sam or Steve could say anything else, Stark had left, apparently talking to himself about it.

Steve looked at Sam, eyebrows raised. “Wings?”

Sam shrugged. “Hey, it was confidential. Like way above most people’s pay grades confidential. The program did get scrapped--too much training, too much risk.” He got that look on his face he had when he thought about his time in Afghanistan.

Steve put a hand on his arm. “Hey. You sure it’s a good idea?”

Sam snapped back to the present and shrugged again. “Doesn’t seem like they have guns here, least not like I’m used to, so gotta use the talents you’ve got, right? Besides, it really _would_ be amazing to fly again.”

 

With Stark gone, Mag was able to finish fitting them for armor--light, flexible, but durable and, according to Mag, “able to withstand most weapons, and a fair amount of magic, as long as you’re being smart about it.”

It was strange, wearing it, and Steve wanted to take it off almost immediately. The blue material--it had to be leather, but it felt stronger than that--was just so different from what he was used to. But what was worse was knowing it was meant for battle, and he had no intention of fighting. Not against Bucky. But Sam convinced Steve he needed to wear it, get used to it, so he kept it on. Sam looked a little more at ease in his, though Steve supposed it couldn’t be that much different from what he wore in the air force. But something nagged at him still.

“Wings?” he asked again, softly, when they had a moment.

Sam spread his hands. “I told you, it’s confidential. I’m not supposed to talk about it. But yeah. Wings.”

“I thought you said you were a pilot.”

“I never actually said _pilot._ I never do. I don’t like lying.”

Steve was quiet for a moment, thinking it over. He didn’t like that his closest friend had kept something so big from him when he’d shared some of his own worst times. But he understood, even if he wasn’t happy about it.

“Do you miss it?”

Sam sighed. “The flying? Absolutely. Nothing else, though. I don’t miss combat. And I really don’t miss losing my friends.” He was quiet a second. Steve could guess why. “But yeah. It’s hard not to miss the flying. If Stark can make it work…” he smiled. “Well that’d be something else.”

Steve had to smile at the wistful look on Sam’s face, but he felt a sinking feeling at the same time. What was _he_ going to do? What use was he? All he had was Bucky’s name, and he didn’t even know how useful that was going to be. He couldn’t fight. At best he was a liability, and he felt this even more keenly when he was faced with the dazzling array of weapons in the rest of the armory, and a small man with glasses excitedly showed them the vast variety that was available. He introduced himself as Zola, and seemed a little too pleased with the prospect of fighting and destruction.

He was explaining guns to Sam--since they did actually have guns, though he was right about them working differently. Apparently they channeled magic and turned it into a kind of missile, similar to a bullet. Steve only half listened, paying more attention to the simpler things, drawn to a large rack of shields of all shapes and sizes. He didn’t want to attack. It reminded him too strongly of the kinds of macho assholes who thought men were only manly if they could beat up something and make it hurt. Steve preferred the idea of a shield, of protecting. Of keeping those kinds of assholes from damaging people whose only crime was existing. People like him. And Bucky too, though he wasn’t sure Bucky needed much of that kind of protection.

“We do have some excellent shields,” Zola said from behind him, and Steve whirled to face him, startled and uneasy. He hadn’t gotten a good first impression of the man, and it wasn’t changing much as time went on.

“But I think perhaps I might have something even better for you, hmm?” he continued.

Steve frowned at him, immediately suspicious. “Yeah? What’s that?”

“You are small, you have always been looked down upon, yes? Called weak, worthless.”

Steve stiffened, and his frown turned into a glare. “That’s none of your business.”

Zola shrugged. “Perhaps not, but…” he leaned in with a sly smile. “I can make you more. Shut them up for good, yes? You would be big, strong, stronger even than your friend here, and you would have power like you’ve never dreamed. Not like now.”

Steve bristled. “Ain’t nothing wrong with me,” he said. His mother’s words of encouragement clashed with Lady Gaga’s _Born This Way_ in his head and he wasn’t quite able to pull anything coherently inspirational from either of them, but he knew what his brain was trying to say. “You think just ‘cause I’m short, just ‘cause I’ve got disabilities, that means I need to be better? You’re wrong. I’m fine just the way I am.”

“But you could be so much more,” Zola insisted. “You could be _great_ , you could make such a difference to the world. This world, as well as  your own.”

“I don’t know how long it’s been since you took a look at it, but my world’s a different place now. I don’t need to be perfect to make it a better place, I just gotta be loud enough.”

“Ah, but you can’t deny that perfection helps.”

“Only if the people you’re talking to can’t see past the outside, and I don’t care much for people like that.”

Zola was becoming frustrated. “I’m offering you power beyond your wildest dreams, boy! A smart man would take it.”

“Yeah, well, then I ain’t smart, ‘cause I don’t want it. Give me a shield, that’s good enough for me.”

Zola let out a disappointed huff. “You don’t deserve anything in here, with your lack of vision.”

“Now hang on a minute…” Steve was ready to rip the guy a new one, but he was interrupted by Stark barging in and Sam putting a hand on his shoulder.

“Zola! Thanks for your… uh, help. I’ll take it from here,” Stark said, and Zola let out an offended scoff, but he departed. Steve let out a sigh of relief, and unclenched his hands, which had balled into white-knuckled fists.

“Can’t stand that guy,” Stark said, rolling his eyes. “Anyway, I got your wings figured out, buddy, so we can get you trying them out ASAP. And you…” he turned to Steve, frowning. “Didn’t Zola get you anything?”

Steve shook his head, trying not to scowl too much. “We didn’t get along.”

Stark snorted. “Can’t blame you. Whatever, this one’ll be good for you, I bet.” He took a round shield off the rack and held it out. “Lightweight, deflects pretty much everything, including magical attacks, which I hear you’ve got a natural talent for resisting anyway. Designed it myself. Give it a try.”

Steve gave Stark a bit of a suspicious look, wary of everything in the armory after Zola’s little speech, but he took the shield. It felt warm in his hands. Right. He slipped it on his arm, and it felt like it was made especially for him. He stared at it, his face softening into a look of awe.

Stark grinned. “Yeah, thought so. It likes you.”

Steve blinked. “It what?”

“Likes you,” Stark repeated. “Stuff made with enough magic tends to develop… not a complete consciousness, but a kind of awareness. It’ll work better with certain people and actually work against others. When the picture-perfect Mr. Right comes along, the object actually stops working properly with anyone but other Mr. Rights. This shield in particular has been tricky to match up, but it looks like we finally found Mr. Right. That’s the warm feeling you’ve got. You complement each other. Congratulations.” He shrugged. “Who knows, you might even be able to pull off some fancy shit with that.”

“Like what?”

Stark flapped his hands. “Hell if I know! You’ll figure it out, hotshot. Tends to be pretty natural. Instinctive.”

“That’s… awfully convenient.”

Stark laughed. “That’s magic. Convenient as hell one second and touchy as shit the next. You learn to work with it. Anyway, let’s get you flying, Tweety Bird.”

 

Stark led them out to a large garden--not the same as the one with the fairy ring, but similar, and he picked up what looked like a backpack off a bench, holding it out to Sam.

“There you go. Strap that on. Give it a try.”

“Is it gonna like me as much as that shield likes Steve?” Sam sounded like he was joking, but Steve could see how tight his smile was. He was nervous. Steve couldn’t blame him.

“Only one way to find out,” Stark said brightly, and shook the bag slightly. “C’mon, take it.”

Sam took a deep breath and took the bag. As soon as it was in his hands, he was smiling. Stark grinned.

“See? Nothing to worry about. Built it with you in mind, so I’d really have to suck for it not to like you, and I definitely don’t.”

Sam laughed nervously, but he was looking a lot less anxious as he strapped the backpack on. It was a small, simple pack, made of thick, stiff fabric, with no obvious zippers or pockets, but it had the straps, buckles, and fastenings of a really well made hiking backpack. Once Sam had it on and was done adjusting it, it looked pretty secure.

He spread his arms. “Alright, now what?”

“Think about wings. Flying,” Stark suggested.

Sam sighed and looked upward for a moment, then closed his eyes. There was a moment of silence, then huge, steel grey wings unfolded gracefully, like they’d always been there, and Sam’s eyes flew open with a gasp.

“Holy _shit,_ I can _feel_ them!”

Stark pumped a fist into the air in victory. “ _That’s_ what I’m talking ‘bout!”

Sam was testing the wings out slowly, stretching them, bringing them close and stroking his hand through the feathers, shivering a little at the feeling of it. Steve watched, entranced. It was beautiful--the wings, the way Sam was in awe of them--all of it. His hands clutched his shield and he couldn’t look away.

But Stark was getting restless. “Okay, okay, are you going to try flying or not?”

Sam laughed, breathless, and nodded. “Yeah, yeah. Of course. Right.” He took a few deep breaths, stretched his wings out as far as they would go, and jumped.

His wings took over, and Sam began to fly.

Steve laughed, delighted, and thought he’d never seen anything quite so beautiful as Sam flying joyfully, like he was born to do it.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> haha pierce. what a great guy, right? such a great guy. he's probably a great king. 
> 
> Comments and kudos are appreciated and I hoard them like a dragon and treasure them. Come visit me on [tumblr!](http://waffilicious.tumblr.com/)


	6. Chapter 6

They set out early the next day, wearing their armor and taking their weapons to the fairy ring. Stark and Banner met them, Stark in his gauntlets and Banner looking a little bit like he was embarrassed to be there. He had a messenger bag slung across his shoulder, but other than that there didn’t seem to be any supplies.

“Do we need to bring like… food or something?” Sam asked. “I mean, I’ve never been on one of these quest things before but I feel like we need more stuff if we’re heading out to face the unknown.”

“You ever play D&D?” Stark asked.

Sam nodded. “Yeah, a bit in high school. Why?”

Stark pointed at Banner’s bag. “That there is basically a Bag of Holding. Magic lets it hold just about whatever we need to take, all Banner has to do is think about it when he’s reaching in and he’s got it.”

“Uh…” Steve started, raising a hand in confusion. “What?”

Sam nudged him with an elbow. “Remember Mary Poppins’ bag? Like that.”

“Gotcha.”

“So what’s the plan?” Stark asked. “Are we just wandering around until we find this guy?”

Steve frowned, thinking. “Well… you said he attacked a village recently. How long ago was that?”

“Five days now,” Banner answered.

Steve nodded. “We should probably start there. See if there’s any clues about where his head is, where he might go next.”

Stark clapped a hand on Steve’s shoulder. “Good thinking, short stack, I’m impressed. There’s a ring near that town, it’ll make travel easy, at least until we can figure out what to do next.”

Steve was a little surprised to have his plan accepted so easily, but he forced himself to take a deep breath, telling himself that Stark actually thought it was a good idea and he wasn’t going along out of pity.

The fairy ring was just as weird the second time as it had been the first, but at least Steve was ready for it. They stepped out into a forest glade, lighter and airier than the one they’d been in just a day ago. Steve and Sam looked around with interest, but Stark and Banner were already following a road leading into the nearby village.

It was clearly prosperous with large buildings that reminded Steve of the villages in Britcoms he’d watched when he was sick as a kid. It was a river port town, Stark explained, his voice quiet. They were all wary of what they’d find. Apparently, everyone had heard the village had been attacked, but no one knew many details.

Steve pulled the shield from its harness on his back and held it in front of him as they walked through the eerily silent town. It didn’t look like it had been attacked. As they walked through it, and saw more and more, it looked more like it had been abruptly abandoned. Signs of the life that had once lived there lingered--carts left alone in the cobblestone street, paper and fabric rustling in the breeze and lazily fluttering along, open windows, open shops. It looked like someone had just stopped in the middle of town on a busy day and scooped out all the people.

“Wonder if this is what Roanoke looked like,” Sam murmured, and Steve couldn’t help but agree with the comparison. Except whatever the explanation was for Roanoke, it probably didn’t involve magic. Here, Steve could feel a prickling on his skin, and every hair stood on end. He wasn’t sure what magic was supposed to feel like, but glancing at Stark and Banner’s faces, he could guess that the electric feeling in the air was the proof of magic having been done here.

Stark poked his head into a building and motioned for them to follow. Despite his hesitation about entering a person’s home like intruders, even when they weren’t home, Steve followed, and the group spent a long time going through building after building. They were all empty, but nothing had been touched. No animals or insects had gotten to the food still sitting on the tables, no one had disturbed items in the shops, everything lay exactly where it had been or fallen, as if those interacting with the objects had simply vanished. There was no blood. No message. No clues. The place was a ghost town.

Steve felt a sense of unease grow steadily as they explored, and from the silence and expressions on his companions’ faces, he could tell he wasn’t alone.

“What the hell  _ happened _ here?” Stark finally muttered in someone’s living room, breaking the heavy silence.

“That’s what  _ we’re _ wondering,” a woman’s voice said from the shadows in the corner. They all jumped and whipped around, Steve with his shield raised, Sam with his weird magic gun aimed, Stark with his hand held out, palm glowing, and Banner--just taking very deep breaths.

For a moment, they saw nothing. Then, from out of the shadows stepped a woman wearing black leather, in some stylistic combination of armor like what Steve wore and a catsuit. Her shoulder-length hair was fiery red, and her eyes shone green like a cat’s. She smiled, and Steve felt an impulse to step back that he didn’t obey.

“Yeah?” he said. “And who are you?”

The woman turned her sharp gaze on him, and Steve bristled under her judging stare. He felt stripped bare, and he didn’t like it. It made him angry.

“She’s Unseelie is what she is,” Stark snapped. “Back at the scene of the crime, are you?”

“We’ve told you, Stark, and we’ve said it hundreds of times. This wasn’t us.” It wasn’t until her last few words that she looked at Stark. “But if you wouldn’t believe us then, you won’t believe us now.” She walked gracefully, totally at ease, over to a chair, sitting down to cross her legs and drape them over the armrest.

“Because the Unseelie lie. It’s who you are,” Stark spat, barely containing his rage.

The woman laughed. “And the Seelie are paragons of virtue, clearly. Are you seriously trying to tell me you’ve never lied once in your life? Because that’s what you’re implying.” She looked at Stark pointedly. He was silent. She smiled. “I rest my case.”

With Stark, for the moment, stunned into silence, she looked between the rest of them. “You’re looking for the Knight. So are we.”

“Why?” Steve asked.

“Why else? We’ve been blamed for his actions for seven hundred years. I think we deserve some answers.” She looked between Sam and Steve. “You two, though. You’re mortal. Why are  _ you _ here?”

“We don’t have to tell you that,” Sam said.

“Oh? But you told the Seelie everything, or you wouldn’t be decked out in their goodies and accompanied by two of their finest. So who’s the Knight to you?”

“He’s my friend,” Steve said. She was right, he’d told the Seelie, who were as much strangers to him as this woman was. There was no reason to hide it from her. “I’m going to bring him home.”

The woman looked startled, and she stared at him for a long moment, her gaze intent and searching. 

“You know, Fury did say once that the Knight might be from the mortal world,” a man said, and everyone looked up to see a blond man grinning at them from the rafters. “Hey. I’m Hawkeye. That’s Widow.” He nimbly jumped down. “Nice to meet you.”

“Okay, what the hell, are you guys aiming for a fight? Or can I put this away?” Sam sounded exasperated.

“Relax,” Hawkeye said. “We don’t want a fight. Like Widow said, we’re just looking for answers. So are you, right? Maybe we can work together. It’s not like we’ve done great so far on our own.”

“Stark doesn’t want to work with me,” Widow said. “He’s got a grudge.”

“Damn right I do,” he said.

Banner rolled his eyes. “Stark, can you let it go? It was ages ago, and she didn’t actually hurt anything but your pride.”

Stark huffed. He glared. He crossed his arms and looked like a petulant child.

Steve looked both the Unseelie over. Apart from the darker armor and the slight difference in what he could only describe as their  _ aura _ , though he never thought he’d have to use that term, Hawkeye and Widow weren’t really that different from Stark and Banner. They had the same sort of otherworldly sharpness to their features, the same glow to the eyes, the same weirdness that suggested maybe Steve wasn’t seeing the whole picture. Maybe he  _ couldn’t _ see the whole picture.

And the feeling he got from the Unseelie--that slight difference--it didn’t feel  _ bad. _ Gripping his shield, he felt like he could  _ tell _ that they weren’t lying. That they wanted answers as much as Steve did, and they really were willing to work together. Steve wasn’t sure if it was intuition or some more magic bullshit, but for Bucky’s sake, he was willing to give it a shot.

He lowered his shield.

“Okay. Let’s work together.”

“What?” Stark spluttered. “Who put you in charge?”

“Who put  _ you _ in charge?” Steve countered. “As far as I can tell, the only person against this is you. So suck it up or leave.”

Stark floundered for a minute, turned to Banner, who shrugged and nodded, then looked to Sam, who held up his hands.

“Hey man, I’m with Steve. Seems like this is a good enough reason to put aside some rivalries for a while, yeah? People are… vanishing, apparently, and the only person we think is responsible isn’t here. As far as I’m concerned, I can trust these guys as much as I can trust you.”

Stark threw his hands up in defeat. “Fine! But don’t come crying to me when she turns out to be a spy, or a double crosser, or stabs us in our sleep, okay, I’ll just say ‘I told you so’ and I will take  _ great satisfaction _ in saying it.”

“Duly noted,” Steve said. He put his shield back in its harness and held out his hand to Widow. “I’m Steve. That’s Sam. I guess you already know the other two.”

“Charmed,” Widow said, shaking his hand.

“What she said,” Hawkeye added, nudging his partner aside to get his turn.

Once Sam had had his chance to shake hands, they all got comfortable in a stranger’s abandoned living room.

“So,” Steve said. “Let’s start with what we know. How did you find out this town had been attacked?”

Stark shrugged. “There are guards and military outposts stationed all around the lands. They would’ve felt something wrong, probably even before patrols caught it or whoever was stationed here failed to report in. Or traders showed up and found the place deserted.” He looked suspiciously at Widow. “How did  _ you _ find out?”

She spread her hands. “Word travels.”

Stark snorted. “Sure it does.” Widow only smiled innocently.

Steve rolled his eyes. “Okay, well, are there any patterns for the attacks? What usually happens? I take it this sort of thing is out of the ordinary.”

“Well yeah, usually he kills people,” Stark said. “And usually he goes after strategic targets. Guard outposts, traders, supply lines, that kind of thing. Entire villages are rare, but he’s killed innocents before, and this town is in a pretty strategic location. But he’s never made a whole place… disappear before. This is…” Stark gestured helplessly.

“Weird,” Banner finished.

Stark slumped. “Yeah. Weird.”

“His strikes aren’t in any real pattern, either,” Widow added. “Sometimes he’ll do a cluster of several over the course of a few months, and sometimes it’s years before he attacks again.”

“So he’s a wild card,” Sam said.

“Possibly,” Widow said. “If we could figure out who he was working for we’d be able to figure out a lot more, but as it is we can only hope we can find him and he’ll let us ask a few questions. Or he’ll kill us.”

“Great, that’s reassuring,” Sam groaned.

“Oh, and I’m sure you had a  _ much _ better plan,” Hawkeye said, and Sam threw up his hands.

“Well no, but we’ve gotta be able to come up with something better than that.”

“Not really,” Stark shrugged. “I was hoping his surprise at seeing shrimpy would be enough to get him to stand down.”

“Don’t call me that,” Steve said. “And yeah, Sam, that’s probably the best plan we’ve got.”

Sam let out a noise of frustration. “Fine, jeez, if you’re that eager for a suicide mission, why not.”

“But how do we  _ find _ him?” Steve asked.

Banner and Stark looked at each other. “Well,” Banner started, “there’s a lot more magical residue hanging around than we were expecting to find. It’s enough that we could probably isolate it and track it.”

Stark nodded. “I’ve got a thing that can do that. Probably. Might have to fiddle with it to get the right strain of magic, but it shouldn’t take long.”

“Do that,” Steve said. He turned to the Unseelie. “While they’re working on that, I want to know what you know about him. The Knight.”

“Trade you,” Widow said.”

“For what?”

“Tell me what you know about him. You say he was your friend. What you know may give some insight into his behavior.”

Steve frowned, but he nodded. “Alright.”

“I still think it’s a mistake trusting these people!” Stark shouted on his way out the door with Banner.

“Shut up and go do your thing!” Steve shouted back. He looked back to Widow. “So who goes first?”

“You do,” Widow said.

“Fine.” Steve frowned and thought about where to start. “Me and Bucky have been friends since we were kids. He was always… he put up with a lot from me. I was a little shit, honestly, always getting in fights and trying to prove something. He’d wade into every fight and pull me out, or he’d back me up, and always made sure I got cleaned up after. He was… kind, kinder than I ever was. Friends with everyone, helping everyone out.” He sighed, ran a hand through his hair. Talking about Bucky was hard. It always was. It wasn’t any easier now that he knew Bucky was alive, either.

“He liked baseball, he liked dancing, he could’ve hung out with anyone he wanted but he always stuck with me for some reason.” Steve felt a hand on his shoulder and turned to see Sam squeezing it. He rubbed his eyes. They were wet. He sniffed.

“Anyway, he joined the army. Got recruited into special forces. His dad and grandad were army too, so it was kind of expected, but he always said he wanted to protect people. I only heard from him a few times after that. He was doing top secret stuff and couldn’t talk about it, and my mom got sick, so we… were only able to talk once every few months. Then um… not long after my mom died, I got word he’d been killed in action. There was a funeral and everything.” He stopped there, wiped his nose and sniffed again. He took a deep breath.

There was quiet for a long moment. Sam squeezed his shoulder again.

“Sorry, I uh… don’t talk about him much anymore.”

“He meant a lot to you,” Widow said softly.

Steve looked up at her, glaring. “Of course he did. He meant a lot to everyone. HIs friends, his family--he was… he was a huge part of our lives.”

“No, he was a huge part of  _ your _ life.”

Steve shut his mouth and stared down at his lap. He couldn’t argue with that. Bucky had been… so much to him. Both Bucky and Steve’s mom had been essential in different ways. They were two huge pieces of him, and they were both ripped away within weeks of each other. It still ached, and he still felt like a shell of a person five years later. It was the sort of thing he never told anyone, not his therapist or even Sam, but under the Widow’s deeply scrutinous gaze he felt urged to confess.

He resisted. Mostly.

“That may be an understatement,” was all he said.

The Widow raised an eyebrow, then nodded. “Alright, fair’s fair. The Knight is nearly impossible to track or catch. He appears without warning, kills cleanly and efficiently, and leaves only deliberate witnesses or no witnesses at all. The truth is, the only proof we have that he’s made all the strikes he has is that he’s consistent about the kills themselves. They’re always swift, nearly instantaneous and painless. They’re always killed that way, whether or not there are witnesses. No one else seems to be able to duplicate his brutal efficiency consistently. He’s also an incredibly powerful magic user. It’s how he can remain hidden, practically a ghost. It’s how he’s so fast and strong, how no one can face him and live. Whoever he used to be, now he’s more powerful than possibly anyone in Seelie or Unseelie lands.”

“So we can’t stop him,” Sam said.

“I didn’t say that,” the Widow admonished. She looked at Steve piercingly. “You know his name, don’t you.”

Steve nodded slowly.

“You’ve been told how important that is? What a name is?”

He nodded again.

“What you might not have been told is that the more you know of a person’s true nature, the more powerful their true name will be in your hands. So you have probably the only weapon against him there is, at least that we know of.”

There was silence for a moment.

“So then what?” Sam asked. “Is that all we’ve got?”

“It’s enough,” Steve said. “It has to be. Just give me the chance to say it to him, and… well, if it doesn’t work…”

“We’ll burn that bridge when we come to it,” Hawkeye said brightly. “Hey, bud, change of subject, but when this is all over I wanna ask you about your ear thingys, okay? We gotta compare notes.” He tugged on his own ears, where he wore a pair of amethyst earrings Steve hadn’t noticed before. Hawkeye winked.

“Later, Hawkeye,” Widow said.

“Hey, I  _ said _ later! I just wanted to make sure he knew! It’s not often I get to meet a mortal with the sciencey equivalent of my shit.”

Widow rolled her eyes, but any further questioning was forced aside by Stark barging back in with a triumphant shout.

“We’ve got it! Come on, we can see which way he went, quickly!”

 

Outside, Banner was holding a small box that immediately reminded Steve of a tricorder, and when he leaned over to whisper it to Sam, he was already grinning and nodding before Steve could even say anything.

“Taking inspiration from Roddenberry for that one?” Sam asked.

“Don’t knock it ‘till you try it, bird brain,” Stark said. “Show ‘em how it works, Banner.”

“Right, well, it’s something we’ve been working on for a while,” Banner explained. “Most of the time when people are looking to track a magic trail, they have to rely on their own intuitions or that of someone sensitive to the type of magic they’re after. But that’s easily fallible or confused. But if we treat magical residue, so to speak, like radiation in the mortal world, we…”

“Yadda yadda yadda, you point the thing and it goes blip and leads you to where yoru dangerous killer boyfriend scarpered off to,” Stark said impatiently.

Banner frowned. “I was getting there.”

“He’s not my boyfriend,” Steve said.

“Close enough,” Stark said, bouncing on his toes. “Let’s go.”

Banner shrugged and slid his thumb across the surface of the tricorder thing. It did indeed go “blip,” but then it started glowing, and as it did, a gloating path of dusty blue particles shimmered into existence. They drifted lazily, and for a moment Steve was stunned by this beautiful blue river of magic surrounding them. When they moved, the magic stirred and parted and curled around them, and though it hung all around town, it clearly was leading in a particular direction out of town.

They all looked at each other.

“Well,” Hawkeye said. “Guess we should move.”

“After you,” Stark said.

Hawkeye shrugged and started off. Widow went with him, Steve and Sam followed, and Banner and Stark took up the rear. As they walked out of town, the world felt silent. There were few sounds from the forest around them, and the magic hung heavy in the air, like visible humidity. Steve didn’t know if he was imagining the sticky-staticky-ozone smell, but it certainly added to the feeling of pressure on his skin.

“So I’m still pretty uncomfortable with not having a solid plan,” Sam said, finally breaking the silence.

“Neither am I, but without having any idea what we’re walking into, there’s not much else we can do,” Stark said.

Steve frowned. “There’s gotta be something. Stark, you’ve got that suit on, right?  You and Sam could fly overhead.”

“And what, provide air support? In a forest?” Stark snorted.

Sam shrugged. “It’s better than nothing. If anything, we can add an element of surprise if things go out of control.”

Stark sighed. “Alright, fine. What will you flightless wonders do?”

Steve looked the others over. Hawkeye had an impressive looking bow and a quiver full of arrows. Steve kind of wanted to get a better look at the bow--it looked like it had some interesting carvings on it--but that would have to wait.

“Hawkeye, you think you could find a spot to give us ranged cover as we walk?”

Hawkeye nodded. “I can do that.”

Steve nodded back. “And Widow, Banner, and I can keep walking as normal. It’s not quite flanking, but it’s better than nothing, right?”

Sam laughed and clapped him on the back. “Damn, I’d like to see you play chess sometime.”

“Me and Buck used to play when we were kids,” Steve said with a smile. “I’ll play you when we get back.”

Sam grinned. “I’ll take that challenge.”

“Talk about it later,” Banner said. “It looks like the trail doesn’t go on for too much longer.”

They took their positions, but before he took off, Sam pulled Steve into a tight hug.

“Whatever happens next,” he murmured into Steve’s ear, “I’m with you, okay? We’ll figure it out. We’ll find a way to bring him home.”

Steve bit back tears and nodded, reluctant to let Sam go. But he did, and he watched Sam’s wings unfurl and carry him gracefully skyward.

Widow looked at him. “You know, you might not be able to save him.”

Steve’s jaw clenched. “We don’t know that. We won’t know until we try. And we have to try.”

Widow nodded, smiled a little, then started walking. She and Banner made quiet companions, but Steve wasn’t in the mood to talk anyway. He gripped his shield tightly and tried to breathe evenly. They didn’t know what they were walking into, but Steve reminded himself that they were doing this for  _ Bucky. _ Whatever had happened to him, whatever he’d done, for whatever reason, he was still Bucky, and Steve was going to remind him of that.

They walked on for another fifteen minutes or so, watching the magic trail grow thicker and more collected. It led them right into a glade, and there, in the center of it, stood the Winter Knight, his sword drawn and pointed straight at them.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Comments and kudos are appreciated and loved dearly. I make them into stuffed animals and hug them as I fall asleep.
> 
> okay no i don't but i love them anyway.
> 
> come visit me on [tumblr!](http://waffilicious.tumblr.com/)


	7. Chapter 7

“Don’t come any closer.” The Knight’s tone was sharp, warning, but Steve caught the anxiety in Bucky’s voice.

They stopped where they were. Banner put the tricorder away, and the magic seemed to fade as well, until it was just them and an angry armored man with a sword pointed right at them.

Steve swallowed hard. “Bucky,” he started warily.

“Don’t,” the Knight snapped. “I told you to go home. I told you not to come here.”

“Yeah,” Steve said. “But I didn’t. I couldn’t. Not when my best friend was back from the dead.”

“I’m not…” but the Knight stopped. He didn’t sound convinced.

“You remember me, don’t you?” Steve asked. He put his shield down slowly, ignoring Widow and Banner’s soft protests. Widow had her weapons out. Out of the corner of his eye, Steve could see Hawkeye with his bow drawn, and Sam and Stark above, weapons at the ready. Steve took a few steps forward, his hands open and raised.

The Knight stiffened. “Maybe. Once. Many lifetimes ago. Not anymore.”

Steve felt his heart pound against his ribs, felt more scared than he ever had before, but he kept walking forward. “It wasn’t that long ago for me. It’s still your life, Buck. It’s still  _ you. _ Come home.” 

“I’m not  _ him _ ,” the Winter Knight growled. “That man is  _ dead. _ I am the Winter Knight. Go  _ away. _ Don’t… don’t make me do this.”

“Do what, Buck? Kill me? If I’m nothing to you then maybe you should.”

“Steve,  _ stop, _ ” Sam said from above, and though the Knight’s gaze flickered upward, Steve resisted the urge to look and kept walking forward, slowly, one step after the other.

The Knight snarled and surged forward, putting his sword to Steve’s throat. Steve froze.

“Bucky.  _ Please. _ ” He was nearly sobbing with the ache of it. He pressed up against the cold sharp metal, his heart hammering in his chest, his breath tight and shallow, but he risked the bite of the sword in his skin to put his lips to Bucky’s ear. “Your name,” he whispered harshly, nearly gasping against the blade and the threatening asthma attack, “is James Buchanan Barnes.” He put every memory of Bucky he had behind the words, the sweet boy who’d raise hell for him, who sat with him quietly in his room when Steve was sick, who always had a mischievous smile and a plan for fun but always got Steve out of trouble no matter who started it, who danced with him at prom when no one else would, who laughed, who smiled, who always had his back. He remembered how it felt to sit next to him on the fire escape of his mother’s apartment and watch the rain. He remembered his hair, his eyes, his laugh, and every little thing that made Steve want to spend every minute with him. That made Steve feel incomplete without him.

“I’m your friend, Steven Grant Rogers,” he continued, whispering. “Please.  _ Please _ remember me. Please.”

He felt how Bucky went statue still, and he held his breath and took a step backward. Bucky didn’t move, and his eyes were glazed over in a thousand-yard stare to rival any Steve had seen or imagined.

No one spoke. No one moved. No one breathed.

“Your mom’s name was Sarah,” Bucky said softly, wonderingly, like he was seeing something breathtakingly beautiful for the first time. “You used to wear second hand shoes that barely fit until you wore holes right through them.” His bright blue faerie eyes shifted to look at Steve, and Steve knew.

He had Bucky back.

But Bucky wasn’t done. “I used to look at you, and think you were the dumbest, most stubborn, most beautiful person I’d ever met.” He sank to his knees, and his sword fell to the ground. “I looked up to you. You were braver than anyone I ever knew. I would’ve done anything for you. I loved you,” he whispered, like he couldn’t believe it. Before he could stop himself, Steve stepped forward and went to his own knees to pull Bucky into a tight hug, which Bucky returned with one arm tight around Steve’s waist. “Why didn’t I ever tell you I loved you?” Bucky asked.

Steve realized he was crying. They both were. “Because you’re a goddamn jerk,” Steve said, laughing weakly. “And I never told you I loved you because I”m a chickenshit coward of a punk.”

Bucky laughed, breathless, tearful. “God, we were a mess, weren’t we.”

Steve laughed right back. “Yeah, well, not much has changed there.”

“Look, this is really sweet and all,” Stark said, and Bucky stiffened in Steve’s arms. “But this is still the guy who killed a whole village, hundreds of traders, soldiers, guards, and civilians, and  _ my parents. _ Are we supposed to just accept him now? Just like that?”

Steve turned away to glare at Stark, who had landed nearby. He didn’t completely pull away from the hug, unwilling to let go of Bucky now that he had him back. 

“We’ll figure it out, okay? It’s Bucky, it’s…”

“He’s right, though,” Bucky said softly. Steve pulled back to look at him, and Bucky was shaking his head sadly. “Steve, you gave me my name back, but I’m not… I can’t just go back to being him, it’s not that easy. It’s been… so long. I’ve killed so many people. I’m… I’m a monster, Steve. Now I’m a monster with a name, but I’m still a monster.”

Steve sat back, swallowing hard against the lump in his throat. “Okay… I mean. Obviously. You’re…” He’d changed. Of course he had. He was wearing armor, his eyes had the same bright ethereal quality as all the others here, he  _ felt _ different. He  _ was _ different. “Tell me,” Steve said quietly. “Tell me what happened.”

Bucky looked around the clearing, where everyone had come from their positions to circle around him and watch them. Bucky took a deep breath and rubbed his forehead.

“I don’t remember much. I remember you, I remember  _ before, _ at least now I do, and I know what I’m meant to be  _ now, _ but…” He shook his head. “How it actually happened is vague.” He sighed. “I can’t… I can’t tell you who did this. I can’t say his name. But I do know that I’m bound to him. I have to obey him.”

“Bound… how?” Widow asked carefully. Bucky turned to look at her, then put his hand over his armored left arm.

“This,” he said. “I channel his power through it, and he uses it to control me.”

“And you can’t tell us who it is,” Banner said.

“I can’t say his name, no.”

“Can we get a hint at least?” Hawkeye asked.

Bucky thought for a moment. “You all know him.” He looked around the group. “Who had the most to gain from the death of the monarchs?”

They all looked at each other. There was silence for a moment, and Steve could tell both the Seelie and the Unseelie were struggling with the same conclusion.

“It can’t be,” Stark said.

“It makes sense,” Widow replied.

“What a  _ bastard _ ,” Hawkeye said.

“Wait, what am I missing here?” Sam asked.

Steve looked up at him. “It’s Pierce, Sam.”

Sam stared. “How do you figure?”

“He came into power after Stark’s parents were killed,” Banner answered. “At the time, we believed it was a good idea for their closest advisor to take the throne, since Stark was in mourning and didn’t want it, but…”

“But he was gunning for it the whole time,” Widow continued. “He wouldn’t have been able to do it himself, so he brought in an outsider and channeled his magic through him… damn.” She looked down at Bucky. “What did he  _ do _ to you?”

Bucky flinched. “You don’t want to know.”

“Is he really that desperate for a war, though?” Hawkeye asked. 

“He talks a lot about the days when the two courts were one,” Stark replied bitterly. “Guess he decided the best way to do that was to beat you down until you saw things his way.”

“Wow, he really missed the point of that story, didn’t he,” Hawkeye said.

“Depends on what you think the point is,” Banner said.

“Whatever,” Stark said, waving his hands. “What do we do about it now?”

Steve looked at Bucky. “Can we break the bond? Is that possible?”

Bucky tensed up and fiddled with the edge of the armor at his shoulder. “Yeah, I think so. I mean… it’s possible, I’m just not sure how.”

Banner looked pointedly at Stark. “We can help, can’t we?”

Stark stiffened, but he nodded. “Yeah. If you’ll let us get a good look, anyway.”

Bucky stared at Stark for a moment. “For what it’s worth,” he said, “I’m sorry.”

Stark’s helmet retracted, revealing his frown. “Yeah. Well. Wasn’t your idea, right? Couldn’t disobey. Whatever. If we can knock you out of Pierce’s power maybe we can knock him down a peg and figure out what he’s after. Let’s have a look.”

“You’ve pretty much hit the nail on the head, honestly,” Bucky said. Stark knelt down next to Bucky and grabbed his left arm and started looking it over. Bucky jerked his arm away, a startled look on his face. Everyone tensed.

“Don’t… don’t do it like that,” Bucky muttered. “Bad memories.”

Stark frowned, but his expression was more thoughtful than frustrated, so Steve didn’t try to intervene. “Sorry,” Stark said, and reached for the arm again, more gently this time. Bucky took a deep breath and visibly forced himself to relax, and everyone else did too.

Stark looked over the arm for a few minutes, tapping it here and there, muttering a few things, and requesting tools from Banner. Bucky held very still, his gaze somewhere off in the distance. Steve scooted forward and took Bucky’s free hand.

“Hey,” he said softly. Bucky refocused on Steve. “I’m going to get you home. Whatever it takes.”

Bucky’s brow furrowed. “You sure you’re up for that? It might… I’m not sure I’m worth it.”

“Don’t,” Steve interrupted, squeezing Bucky’s hand tightly. “Don’t even think that. Of course you’re worth it. Whatever it takes, Bucky, I swear. I’m bringing you home.”

Bucky smiled tightly, but he nodded and squeezed Steve’s hand right back. Steve wanted to hug him again, he looked so hurt and lost, but he stayed where he was and held Bucky’s hand as tightly as he could instead.

Stark asked a few questions about the arm, but he was fairly absorbed in the work with Banner, so Steve could keep talking softly with Bucky.

“Does it… feel like you’ve lived that long? Seven hundred years? It’s… just so hard to believe.”

Bucky let out a deep sigh. “Yes and no. A lot of it… feels like a dream. Like a very long, very bad dream. And I didn’t… I didn’t wake up until you said my name. I didn’t even know who I was until that moment, you have to understand. But I also know… I did all those things. I killed all those people. That was  _ me, _ dream or no dream.”

“No, Bucky, no, that was Pierce making you do it, it’s not your fault.”

“But it was still me,” he insisted softly, and despite Stark’s concentration on his work, Steve could see him flinch.

“We’ll talk about it later,” Steve said. “Is there anything else you can tell us about? Anything that could help?”

Bucky rubbed his thumb over Steve’s hand and glanced around. The Unseelie and Sam were talking quietly, but clearly listening in all the same.

“He wants… a single unified court, but he wants it to be a Seelie court, not a balance of the two. That’s why he’s been pushing the war.”

“Does he want to destroy the Unseelie court completely or just take us over?” Hawkeye asked. Bucky turned his head slightly, acknowledging him without really looking at him.

“Both. Anyone who’s not willing to accept his rule, or might rebel, he’ll have them killed. He has something big planned for that, though it’s not finished yet.”

Stark stopped cold and stared at Bucky. “Project Insight?”

Bucky nodded. Stark sat back and started swearing under his breath.

“Something wrong?” Sam asked.

“He asked me to consult on that. It’s really not very far along, just in preliminary stages, but it’s got the potential for very precise, very destructive hits. Basically all Pierce would have to do is envision who he wants killed and they’d drop dead, like that.” He tried to snap his fingers, but the gloves got in the way. He waved his dismissively. “Well. You know what I mean.”

“And you were  _ helping _ with that?” Steve asked.

“Well. Yeah. I am the smartest guy in the room about 99% of the time. He’d be an idiot not to ask. And in my defense, he was presenting it as a defense project to protect against more attacks or invasion. You know. War stuff. Keeping people safe.”

Widow snorted, but didn’t say anything else.

“Anyway,” he continued, “I think we’ve got a good idea of what’s driving this thing,” Stark said, tapping the armor on Bucky’s arm.

“Yeah?” Steve shifted to get a better look.

“Yeah. It’s a pretty complicated thing--like he said, it’s got binding magic, which is actually attached right to his  _ soul, _ which takes a really… really dark and ugly kind of ritual let me tell you, that’s supervillain central type stuff. Anyway, it also channels and is a direct connection to Pierce. Our friendly little assassin here can pull power from Pierce with his permission, and Pierce can flood it with his power, kind of overload him, and… well. You know. Torture him.”

Sam and Steve both flinched. Everyone else looked grim.

“Okay,” Steve managed. “So how do we get it off him?”

“Aha,” Stark said, holding up a finger. “I think not only can we do that, we can also cripple Pierce. At least for a minute or two.”

They all stared, but Stark was clearly pausing for effect.

“Well?” Steve asked, frustrated.

Stark smiled, and launched into his plan.

  
  


**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Two chapters left! 
> 
> Comments and kudos are cherished and adored! Please come visit me on [tumblr!](http://waffilicious.tumblr.com/)


	8. Chapter 8

The plan was probably a bad idea. Risky and ridiculous, it was practically designed to fail. But they had nothing else, not when Pierce had all the advantages. About the only thing they had going for their motley crew was the element of surprise, and with Bucky’s connection to Pierce, they weren’t even sure how much of that they had on their side. Before they started out on their journey back to the fairy ring, Sam had pulled Steve aside with a look of concern.

“You sure about this?”

Steve stared at Sam incredulously. “Sam. You said you’d help bring Bucky home. You  _ said… _ ”

“I know,” Sam interrupted, “and I will, but… Steve. Seriously. This plan is  _ crazy. _ And I’ve flown into combat zones in nothing but body armor and a pair of wings.”

Steve threw up his hands. “I know, okay? Magic still feels like a load of bullshit, and I feel like any minute a blue guy with a mullet and a crop top is going to hand me a ring and say I’ve got the power of  _ love _ on my side, but what else do we have?”

Sam sighed. “Yeah. But… I just want to be sure you’re not agreeing to this just because you feel like there’s no other choice.”

“There  _ isn’t. _ And I’ll do anything to save Bucky, you know that.” He sighed. “Look, you don’t have to help. I’m sure Stark and Banner could help you find a safe place to hide out until it’s all over, or get you back home before we go. If  _ you’re _ only doing this because you feel like you have to…”

“No, look, I promised I’d have your back, and I meant that. I’m right there with you, and I want to help Bucky too, he’s been through hell. I just gotta be sure that  _ you’re _ sure.”

“I’m sure, Sam. It’s not… it’s not even just about Bucky. This guy Pierce, what he’s doing… it’s not right. If we can help these people stop that, take back their lands…”

Sam nodded slowly. He took a deep breath. “Yeah. Okay. Okay. Let’s do this.”

 

The walk was quiet for a time, until they started getting close to the village again.

“So are we just going to ignore the fact that this guy killed a whole village somehow?” Stark said. “Just a few days ago?”

“They’re not dead,” Bucky said quietly.

Widow, walking just ahead of them, stopped abruptly and turned around. Everyone came to a stop behind her.

“ _ What? _ ” she asked.

“They’re not dead,” Bucky repeated. “He ordered me to kill them, but I’d just seen…” he gestured to Steve without quite looking at him. “It was… jarring. I was confused. I didn’t... “ He struggled with himself. Steve wanted to reach out and hold him tight, but it wasn’t the time or the place. Just because he’d found Bucky didn’t mean he had him  _ back. _ Not yet.

“I couldn’t do it,” Bucky said, almost a whisper, staring down at his hands. “Not after…” he shook his head. “So I hid them instead. In another plane. Just… out of sight. Sleeping.”

Everyone stared. There was a moment’s silence, because it was fairly clear that Bucky wasn’t done yet. He shifted his weight, then continued. “He… he didn’t like it. He punished me. But he hasn’t… made me fix it yet.”

“Fix it by killing them, you mean,” Banner said.

Bucky nodded. Stark frowned at him. “Well. You’re going to have to tell me exactly how you did that.”

“We can’t bring them back now, Pierce will know something’s up,” Widow pointed out.

“Yeah, obviously, I mean for later.”

“I will,” Bucky said.

There was quiet again, for a bit.

“Are we gonna keep going or…” Sam said.

Widow nodded shortly and gave Bucky a searching look before moving on once more.

Steve didn’t want to keep walking. He wanted to stare at Bucky, to hold him close and whisper in his ear  _ don’t you know what this means? You aren’t the monster you think you are, the monster everyone sees you as. He hurt you, he tried to change you, but you’re still in there. You’re so strong. You can come home. I’m bringing you home. _

He and Bucky stared at each other for a long moment, then Steve hesitantly held his hand out to Bucky. He didn’t think he could pull him in for another hug, but he needed  _ something _ . They both did. Bucky stared at the outstretched hand and finally took it, breathing out a sigh as he did. Steve offered a small smile, which Bucky didn’t return, but he did squeeze Steve’s hand gently.

Holding hands, they kept walking.

 

When they reached the ring, they stopped just next to it and started getting ready. Stark was trying to make jokes as he pulled restraints from Banner’s bag, but no one laughed.

Stark and Banner got to work making Hawkeye and Widow look like prisoners, and Steve was left to put Bucky’s hands into a huge pair of restraints that locked them in and held his arms stiff from the elbow down. Steve didn’t like it, but Bucky only looked resigned and held his hands out willingly. Steve grimaced, but started binding Bucky the way Stark had shown him. He wished he had something encouraging to say to Bucky, but he couldn’t think of anything he hadn’t said already. He wasn’t even sure Bucky had believed all that anyway. Now that they were starting to put their plan in motion, Steve was having trouble believing it all himself. He busied himself with the fastenings and latches, not looking at Bucky’s face and hoping his nerves weren’t obvious.

“Steve.”

Steve sighed and looked at Bucky.

“It’s going to be hard. But I believe in you.”

Steve blinked. He looked down again for a moment, then gently touched the metal of Bucky’s left arm, tracing the symbols etched into it and the ridges of the plates of armor.

“I’m sorry,” he said.

Bucky shook his head. “Nothing to apologize for.”

“If I’d known…”

“There was no way you could.”

“But…”

“Steve, stop. When you found out, you came for me. That’s what matters. We’ll figure things out after. You… I still think you’re the strongest person I know. If anyone can get us out of here, it’s you.”

Steve blinked hard, willing the threatening tears to subside. “Okay,” he said. “Okay.”

“You guys okay over here?” Sam asked, walking over.

Bucky shrugged. “About as okay as we can be, I think. Hey, we haven’t met, really. You’re Steve’s friend?”

Sam nodded. “Yeah. I’m his roommate, too. I’m Sam.”

“Bucky. Nice to meet you. Thanks for watching his back this whole time.”

Sam smiled a little. “Yeah, well, someone’s got to. Asshole’s got no idea how to do it for himself, just charges head first into everything.”

Bucky laughed at that, really laughed, and Steve stared at him, drinking in the sound like water in the desert. “Seriously, though,” he said when his laughter had subsided, “you’re a good man for following him all this way.”

“Thanks. It’s been weird, but… look, I’m glad to help, I really am.”

“Everybody ready?” Stark asked. “You get those restraints on right, boy wonder?”

Steve rolled his eyes. “Yeah.”

Stark checked over the fastenings, then nodded. “Nice. Alright, let’s get going. Anyone feel like chickening out before we can’t turn back?”

Steve looked around at everyone. Everyone looked determined, and while he had no idea how this was going to turn out, it encouraged him that they were all willing to give it their all.

“Fantastic. Let’s go kick some ass.”

 

There was a welcoming party waiting for them in the garden when they arrived in the palace’s ring. Ten guards, heavily armed, led by a captain who had even sharper features than anyone Steve had seen so far, and was grinning wolfishly at them as they stepped out of the circle.

“Well, well. Looks like we got the bastard after all.  _ And _ a couple Unseelie fuckheads. Good work, Stark.”

“Brock. So pleased to have your approval. You gentleman going to escort us to see His Majesty?”

The captain made a little bow, but Steve could see how mocking it was. “At your service, Lord Stark. We don’t want any of the prisoners to escape in the heart of our territory, do we? I’m sure it must have been hard enough to catch them in the first place.”

Steve didn’t know this guy, but he could tell sarcasm when he heard it. He bristled, reminded strongly of the asshole jocks who tormented him in high school, but he held back, and held his tongue. He couldn’t risk being kicked out of the group being taken to the throne room, not now, not when their plan relied on his presence.

“We’re grateful for your help,” Banner said before Stark could retort.

Brock grinned and made a gesture, and the guards surrounded them in formation and led them to the throne room. This time, it had more guard lining the walls, weapons at the ready, and Pierce sat in the throne robed in lavishly embroidered brocades, exquisitely tailored. Instead of the simple gold band, he wore a crown fashioned to look like a branch with golden leaves. The whole thing was such an obvious show of power that Steve almost wanted to roll his eyes, except for the wave of magic that rolled through the room and threatened to bowl them over. Another show of power, but this was a more effective reminder of what exactly the King of the Seelie court could do.

They were led right up to the throne, and everyone in their group bowed politely. Steve could hear footsteps at the door, and he turned his head to see Pepper and a handful of other people stepping through it, curious to see what sort of audience this would turn out to be.

The King motioned for them to stand, and there was silence for a moment as they sized each other up, waiting for the first move to be made.

“Stark,” Pierce said calmly. “Banner, Steve, Sam.” He looked at each of them in turn. Steve could feel a flicker of something in his mind, but he brushed it away easily enough. The shield felt warm and comforting at his back. He didn’t feel  _ safe, _ but he felt a renewed sense of confidence.

“You’ve all done very well,” Pierce continued. “I’m very impressed. Three prisoners in one day, and not a scratch on any of you. Remarkable.”

“Yeah, thanks,” Stark said. “Actually, we’ve got a bone to pick with you.”

Pierce raised an eyebrow at him. “Oh?”

“Yeah. Turns out we’ve all been lied to this whole time. The Knight hasn’t been working with the Unseelie at all. He’s definitely working with someone, someone who  _ bound his soul to them, _ ” there was a soft gasp from the back where the lords and ladies were watching, “but that person is actually in this room. And I’m looking right at him.”

Many of the guards stepped forward, but Pierce held up a hand, looking, strangely, amused. “That’s quite the accusation, Stark. You have evidence for this?”

Stark threw his hand up to gesture to Bucky. “All the evidence is right there. He’s bound to you. It’s your magic that flows through his veins. Everything he’s done has been at your order. Everything  _ including _ murdering my parents.”

The gasp from the audience was louder this time, and it was followed by a low susurrus of suspicion.

Pierce stood, his robes sliding off the throne and falling gracefully around him. “Stark,” he said warningly, “I don’t think you quite understand the position you’re in.”

“Pierce,” Stark countered, “I don’t think you fully appreciate who I’ve got on my side. Let’s go.”

The room erupted. Hawkeye and Widow broke out of their false restraints at the same time, pulling their weapons as Stark’s suit emerged around him. Sam’s wings extended, and he jumped into the air. All four met the suddenly attacking guards with grace and skill that Steve didn’t have time to focus on. He pulled his shield from his back and wrapped his arms around Bucky, pulling him into a crouch on the ground and using the shield to protect them as much as he could. He heard a roar beside him, and as he clutched Bucky and his shield, Banner grew into a giant green man who looked very, very angry and joined the fray.

In the midst of the fighting, in the midst of the electric feeling of magic being thrown through the air, Steve concentrated on Bucky. He focused. He had no training in magic, in whatever talent Pierce and Stark said he had, but with the shield in hand he could feel the warmth of it, the strength of it flowing through him. He imagined it surrounding himself and Bucky, deflecting the magic that was being thrown their way, and, more importantly, the magic being channeled through Bucky.

He could feel it coursing through Bucky, from his arm and into his body, like a stream of molten gold--something outwardly beautiful, but dangerous and poisonous and deadly. It didn’t belong there. It  _ felt _ like an intrusion, like an infection. Steve didn’t really know what he was doing at all, but Stark had assured him that it would be intuitive. So he concentrated. He imagined his own resistance like a dam he was using to block the magic flowing into Bucky, stoppering it at the arm, denying it access to his friend. The shield was warm in his hand, and Steve knew that it was helping him somehow, working with him to be a shield for Bucky, protecting him from Pierce’s influence.

Bucky let out a noise of pain, and Steve opened his eyes. In his arms, Bucky was changing. His form was shifting, and Steve watched in horror as he transformed, right there in his arms, into a huge wolf with wild blue eyes. Stark’s restraints came off, and he snapped and growled and howled, but Steve held onto him tightly, and buried his face in his fur.

“Bucky…” he cried. “Bucky, it’s okay, it’s me.” He didn’t know what else to say. There wasn’t anything he could do except hold on and hope that whatever he was doing with his magic or whatever it was would help.

The wolf struggled in his grip, and it was all Steve could do to hold on. A moment later, and the wolf was changing again, and Steve gasped as he felt him grow, bigger and bigger, the fur changing color and the body shifting until Steve was holding tight to a bear. The bear thrashed and growled, and Steve couldn’t get a good grip on him to hold him all the way around, so he threaded his fingers into his fur and held it tightly. He felt like a rag doll, being thrown around by the bear’s strength, but he gritted his teeth and held on. He wasn’t going to fail. He wasn’t going to let Bucky down. They were going to get out of here. They were going to go  _ home. _

Another rush of magic hit his senses and the bear’s brown fur turned tawny gold, and the shape changed again. From a bear, Bucky shifted into a lion, and Steve found clinging to his back as he ran around the throne room, roaring wildly and snapping at anyone who got in his way. As they passed the throne, Steve caught a brief glimpse of Pierce, still standing, glaring at him as he held the lion tightly. 

He couldn’t be distracted. Steve shut his eyes and concentrated. He could force the magic out, he knew he could, he was  _ doing _ it, the transformations were just the last gasp of power Pierce had over Bucky. Bucky started shifting again, and they collapsed to the ground as Bucky changed back into himself, his eyes still wild. He was thrashing, trying to get Steve off of him, trying to attack, but Steve held on until he felt the last of the magic retreat back into his arm.

“I’m sorry, Buck, this is gonna hurt,” he said, and he lifted his shield and brought the edge of it down with all his might against the shoulder of Bucky’s left arm, right where the armor met the rest of him.

With a resounding  _ crash _ and a blast of magic, the arm was completely severed from Bucky’s body. It felt like an explosion, and Steve actually flew through the air and crashed against a pillar. He crumpled, in agony, clutching his shield weakly. He had to… he had to get up, he had to get back to Bucky, he had to help  _ somehow _ …

He managed to struggle to his feet in time to see his friends descending on Pierce, who was trying to fight them all off. He squinted, and realized his glasses had come off somewhere, and he could only barely make out Pierce being taken down by Stark in his red and gold suit.

Steve hurt so badly. He couldn’t stay on his feet. But he had to find Bucky. He had to. He dropped to his knees and crawled along the floor, searching, until he came across a one-armed man lying on the ground.

“Bucky…  _ Bucky, _ ” he said, pleading, but Bucky was unconscious. And Steve couldn’t stay awake anymore. He slumped over onto the body of his best friend, and everything went dark.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> one chapter left! thanks for reading!
> 
> kudos and comments are loved and appreciated. come visit me on [tumblr!](http://waffilicious.tumblr.com/)


	9. Chapter 9

“Steve… c’mon Steve, wake up, it’s all over, we did it…”

Steve blinked. Everything was too bright and loud. His head hurt. Someone put his glasses in his hand and he put them on, though they felt heavy in his grip. When he blinked again, his eyes focusing, Sam was above him, his warm hand on Steve’s face, smiling. “There you are. How’re you feeling?”

“Like I got hit by a truck and then drank five bottles of whiskey.”

“Ouch. Well the good news is you’re not actually hurt physically at all. I guess it was all the magic being tossed around, huh?”

“Yeah,” said Banner, who was kneeling nearby, wearing what looked like a silk dressing gown. “Magic takes a lot out of you, especially when you’re not used to using it. You used a lot, Steve. Put yourself right in between Bucky and Pierce. You probably should’ve been knocked out for a week.”

“He’s a lot stronger than he looks,” Sam said with a smile.

“What’s that supposed to mean?” Steve said, attempting indignance. His headache was too much to really pull it off though, and his voice sounded weak to his own ears.

Sam just smiled and shook his head, patting him on the shoulder. “You’ll be okay.”

“How’s Bucky?”

Sam looked away, and Steve struggled to sit up so he could see for himself. Not too far away, Bucky lay completely naked, unconscious, as a woman looked him over with the eye of an expert. “He looks rough, but the doctor says he’ll pull through. She’s just making sure there’s no lingering nastiness from when you shoved Pierce out.”

“Wait, is his hair… white?”

Banner nodded. “We think it’s a side effect of the breaking of the bond. It was a major shock to his system.”

Steve tried to get up, but both Sam and Banner put hands on his shoulders. 

“Hey man, take it easy,” Sam said. “He’s gonna be okay, just give them a little space to do their work, okay?”

Steve sighed and nodded, watching the doctor working on Bucky. After a moment he looked back to Sam. “So what happened?”

Sam let out a deep breath. “Oh man, it was nuts. The guards were really well trained, but Stark and Hawkeye and Widow were more than a match for them. Not to mention Banner turning into the Jolly Green Giant or whatever. Then when you got the arm off of Bucky, Pierce was left totally vulnerable for a moment, just like Stark said he’d be, so we all rushed him, and…” he shrugged. “Stark took him down. He’s dead. Once he was gone, the guards surrendered, and here we are. It’s only been about half an hour, you weren’t too long.”

“So… it’s over? Just like that?”

Banner laughed. “Well it wasn’t easy, but yes. It’s over.”

“What’s going to happen now? Don’t you need a new King or something?”

“That’s our problem to figure out, Steve, don’t worry.”

“And… what about us?”

“Well,” said Stark, who had sauntered over, his armor back down to just his gauntlets once more, “I mean, I don’t know what the new monarch will decide, but we definitely owe you guys big time. Both courts, I think, since you kind of saved the whole world from Mr. Totally-A-Secret-Supervillain Pierce.”

Steve frowned. “But what does that  _ mean? _ ”

“Well, traditionally it means a boon of some kind,” Banner explained. “Sometimes it’s wealth, power, or a wish to be granted at the time of your choosing.”

“I... don’t really want any of that,” Steve said. “I just want to get Bucky home.” He looked back over to where Bucky lay, and saw that he was awake and sitting up, wearing a silk dressing gown like Banner’s. “Bucky!” Steve cried, and he scooted over to his friend. “Bucky, are you okay?”

Bucky grimaced a little, but he smiled. “I feel pretty terrible but… at the same time I kind of feel better than I have in a long time. I dunno. It’s weird.”

Steve couldn’t help but smile back. “Your hair’s white.”

Bucky blinked in surprise and reached up to pull a lock in front of his face, staring at it with wide eyes. “Holy shit.”

“And… you only have one arm.”

“Well I knew about that part. I lost my arm in the war.”

“Wait, so there was never anything under that armor?”

Bucky shook his head. “Nope. All armor and magic.”

Steve sucked in a breath and worried his lower lip with his teeth. “Well… I’m still sorry.”

Bucky smiled a little. “That’s okay. I’m… I’m  _ free, _ Stevie. I  _ feel _ free. It’s… it’s the most amazing thing and the most terrifying thing at the same time. I don’t even know what to do with myself.”

Steve smiled back. “I’m bringing you home, that’s what we’re doing.”

Bucky laughed, slightly disbelieving. “Yeah. Home.”

“Can I… hug you?”

“‘Course you can, punk.”

 

They were in the Seelie palace for another two days, recovering. They caught the edges of the political discussions, mostly when Hawkeye and Widow spent time with them during breaks in talks to complain about the Seelie, or Stark and Banner cornered them to do the same about the Unseelie. Stark had been offered the throne, being the son of previous monarchs, but he’d flat-out refused the spot.

“Look, as much as I like being in charge, I’m really bad at it when it comes to. You know. Big stuff. I’d rather be working in my lab making cool shit, alright?” He told Bucky and Steve later. “So I told ‘em to give it to Pepper. She’s better at running things than anyone alive, she’d make an amazing Queen. But I dunno how it’ll go.”

“Is it a vote or something?” Sam asked.

“Something like that,” Stark replied.

They’d all been too tired to push for specifics.

The next day, Pepper was made Queen. There’d be a formal crowning later, when everything had been set up and prepared, but in the meantime she took control fairly seamlessly. Everyone in the palace was already used to her being in charge of just about everything anyway, so it wasn’t much of a leap for her to go from King’s Assistant (or whatever she’d been) to Queen.

One of the first things she did was go see Sam, Steve, and Bucky. She didn’t call them to see her in the throne room, or an office, or anything, she found them in a library, curled up together on a couch, just about falling asleep in each other’s laps.

“Oh, I’m sorry, is this a bad time?”

They all blinked awake and sat up.

“No, it’s fine,” Steve said.

“Should we get up and bow or something?” Sam asked.

“No, please don’t, everyone else is bowing already and I can’t stand it.” She sat down in the chair across from them and sighed. “Well. How are you feeling?”

Steve and Sam both looked at Bucky, who was playing with his white hair. He blinked back at them, then looked at Pepper. “Uh… okay, I guess? Kind of feels like really bad caffeine withdrawal, if you know what that’s like.”

Pepper nodded slowly. “Well the doctors say you’re ready to go home whenever you’d like, so I’m here to ask if you’d like anything. We really do owe you a great deal, the more we find out about what Pierce was up to, the more terrifying it is. And we’re awfully sorry about what was done to you, Bucky, no one should have to go through what you did.”

“Well I don’t know about them, but can I keep those wings?” Sam asked.

Steve and Bucky laughed. “You’ve been thinking about that one, haven’t you?” Steve teased.

“Of course I have! Look, you can’t just fly like that and then give it right up, okay, that’s just cruel and unusual.”

Pepper smiled. “Of course you can. I don’t think Stark would’ve let you leave without them, actually. I meant more along the lines of… well we call them boons, but I suppose you could call them wishes.”

“A wish?” Steve said softly. He hadn’t thought much about it since Stark had mentioned them before, and he really didn’t know what to ask for.

“You don’t really have to decide now,” Pepper said. “We can save it, keep it available for you in case something comes up later. We’d give you a token of it instead, something representative of the boon, that could call us when you were ready to make your request.”

“You sure that’s okay?” Sam asked.

“Of course it is. It’s not like we give these out every day, but there is precedence. And honestly I’d really rather you take the time to think about what you’d like, or use it when you really need it instead of wishing for something like great riches forever. That’s not bad, of course, but when you can wish for anything…”

“Hold on,” Steve said. “ _ Anything? _ ”

Pepper nodded. “Just about. There’s a few limitations, like we can’t bring people back from the dead, etc. etc., but other than that, yes. Anything.”

The three of them blinked in astonishment for a moment, looking at each other and then back at Pepper.

“Uh…” Steve said eloquently. “Yeah, I think we’ll take the tokens and uh… think about it.”

Pepper smiled. “Excellent. I honestly can’t express just how grateful we are, and how sorry this all happened. I have to run, unfortunately, I really have a lot of work to do, but if you need anything just… let someone know, and we’ll make sure it happens.” She stood up and brushed her skirt off. Steve noticed she was still wearing the same sort of faerie business suit, and wasn’t even wearing a crown. He hoped that was a good sign.

“Oh,” she said, just before leaving. “You’re welcome to stay as long as you like, of course, but do let us know when you’d like to go home and we’ll arrange it.”

“I don’t think we want to stay too long,” Steve said, and the others nodded. “It’s nice here, but it’s really not for us.”

“Understandable,” Pepper smiled. “Well, so long. Thank you again.”

 

The next day, they were ready to head home. The tokens that represented their boons from the Seelie Court were shaped like suns and hung from chains. Steve had never been one to wear jewelry before, but it felt warm and comfortable around his neck, a little like wearing the shield. Stark and Pepper had insisted that he keep the shield (“it probably won’t work nearly as well with anyone else,” Stark said), and were equally insistent that Sam keep the wings. Stark had even suggested he could design a new arm for Bucky, but Bucky had declined. He wanted to get used to being a mortal again, he’d said, without any magic involved. Stark was disappointed, but thankfully didn’t press the issue.

Stark, Banner, Widow, and Hawkeye had all volunteered to bring them back to the place where they’d crossed over, as it was the spot most likely to send them right back to Central Park instead of somewhere else in the world entirely. It was something of a party as they took the ring back to the forest, which was much cheerier and less threatening in the daylight than it had been in the twilight. They walked and chatted, talking about how well the peace talks were going, and optimistic for the future of the courts.

After hiking for a while, they came to a stop. Banner pulled his bag from over his shoulder and held it out to Steve.

“This is for you,” he said. “It’s an… extra little thanks for what you’ve done.”

Steve shook his head. “I can’t take that, the boon is… plenty.”

“No, I insist. The bag itself isn’t terribly valuable here, I promise, they’re a dime a dozen, but there is… well… a little bit of gold in there.” He shrugged, like handing over a Mary Poppins bag full of gold wasn’t a big deal.

He wasn’t letting Steve refuse it, so Steve sighed and took it. “Thank you.”

“No, thank you. You’ve done more than you realize, you really have.”

“And we have something for you, too,” Widow said. She held out three chains hung with moon pendants. “Boons for each of you from the Unseelie Court. Fury wanted to meet you himself, but he’s busy with the peace talks.”

“Seriously?” Sam asked, but he took the second chain and looped it around his head with a giddy smile. “Holy shit, two whole wishes, I have no idea what I’m gonna do with myself.”

Steve took his with a soft thanks, but Bucky held his in his hand and shook his head. “I can’t take this. I don’t deserve it. Either of them,” he said, and took the other chain off. “I’ve done so much damage.”

“No, Bucky, come on,” Hawkeye said. “No one blames you. It was all Pierce and his shitheads, we know that now.”

“You suffered,” Widow said softly. “A boon is the least we can offer.”

Stark and Banner nodded in agreement.

Bucky sighed and put the chains over his head. “Okay, fine. But don’t be surprised if I never use them.”

Widow shrugged. “That’s your call. But the offer is there, all the same.”

Stark broke the moment of quiet that followed with a boisterous “well this has all been very fun and exciting but let’s get you guys back where you belong.” He pointed, and then poked a spot in the air that shimmered softly under the touch of his gauntlet. “That,” he said, “is a weak point between our worlds. You can’t see them as well from the other side, but there’s enough magic in the air around here that they can be kind of obvious sometimes. Hugs?” He grinned and opened his arms. “Yes? No?”

“No,” Steve said, but offered his hand instead.

“Hearty handshakes it is,” Stark said, and shook his hand heartily.

There were handshakes all around, and more thank yous and goodbyes. Steve was getting a little tired of being thanked. He hadn’t really done any of this for them, he’d done it for Bucky. He felt like he should be thanking them for helping him. So he did, but they brushed it off. 

Oh well. He’d tried.

When all was said and done, they stepped through the shimmery barrier and almost immediately they could feel the difference. The subtle feeling of magic in the air, like humidity, was gone, replaced by real humidity and the dying heat of a summer day in New York. Bucky looked around, smiling, breathing deeply.

“God, I’d forgotten what it smelled like.”

“Awful?” Sam joked.

“Yeah. But a good kind of awful. Home kind of awful.”

Steve smiled and took Bucky’s hand. “Welcome home, Buck.”

 

  
_And then he changed all in her arms_   
_Into a naked man._   
_She's wrapped him in her coat so warm,_   
_And she has brought him home._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> And that's the end! Thank you everyone so much for reading, thank you again to [Sleepofreason](http://archiveofourown.org/users/Sleepofreason) for the beta, and thank you SO much to [Mai](http://maichan808.tumblr.com/) for the art, which I've embedded in the first chapter! Go look at her stuff on tumblr it is jaw-droppingly gorgeous.
> 
> As always, comments and kudos are adored, like sweet little puppies that gather around my feet and wag their tiny little stubby tails.
> 
> Here's [one last link to the song that inspired all this.](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c3yTEUnyYDA) If you like it, I really encourage you to check out the rest of the album, it's amazing.
> 
> And [one last link to my tumblr.](http://waffilicious.tumblr.com/) Come say hi! I don't bite. 
> 
> Thanks again for reading!


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